HELENA — A water rights compact for the Confederated Salish-Kootenai tribes is now in the hands of Montana legislators, and it’s not clear what kind of reception it will get in the weeks to come.

After a two-hour meeting Tuesday night, the nine-member Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission voted to advance the settlement to the Legislature.

The compact quantifies tribal water rights on and off the Flathead Reservation, provides protections for water uses on and off the reservation and would establish a system for administering water rights on the reservation.

The compact also was supposed to include a water use agreement for irrigators on the reservation, but a Lake County District Court judge recently ruled the proposed agreement would have entailed an unconstitutional transfer of irrigator water rights to the tribes.

The compact was advanced Tuesday with a condition that legislative approval would require a Flathead Indian Irrigation Project water use agreement that meets legal muster.

Commission members said the District Court decision will be appealed to the state Supreme Court by the main defendant, the Flathead Joint Board of Control, which negotiated the agreement on behalf of irrigators. An association representing irrigators filed the challenge against the Joint Board of Control and three irrigation districts on the reservation.

The compact will have the support of three legislators who sit on the compact commission and voted in support of it.

One of them, Rep. Dan Salomon, R-Ronan, said he will introduce a bill to adopt the compact and approve a $55 million state appropriation to the tribes that will mostly go to water infrastructure improvements on the reservation.

Salomon said most people attending Tuesday’s meeting spoke in favor of the compact. For weeks now, he said, fellow lawmakers have been asking him about the compact.

“They want to know what the real issues are, the real facts,” he said. “There’s a lot of rhetoric.”

But he concedes there will be considerable work in convincing lawmakers to approve it. “It will be a lot of people, a lot of agencies. I’ll be part of a big team” promoting the compact at the Capitol.

The sole vote against the compact on the commission came from Sen. Debby Barrett, R-Dillon.

Barrett said she has been a legislator for 13 years, and during that time she has endorsed previous compacts where problems and concerns were resolved before they arrived at the Legislature.

That is not the case this time, she said.

“There is not that consensus, there is not that agreement” with this compact, she said, adding that she does not think it is understood by most people, including lawmakers who will vote on it in just a matter of weeks.

Barrett also cited the ruling about irrigator water rights as evidence the compact may be flawed when one of its major purposes is to curb the potential for water rights lawsuits in the future.

“We’re already in litigation,” she said.

Sen. Verdell Jackson, R-Kalispell, has followed the compact negotiation process closely, but he says he still doesn’t understand its potential impacts on water users and he doesn’t believe his questions have been adequately addressed.

“Without understanding this compact better, I have to vote against it,” he said.

Jackson also has concerns about whether the compact will violate state laws and the constitution.

District Judge C.B. McNeil bluntly ruled that the Joint Board of Control has no authority to transfer irrigator water rights to the tribes as a prerequisite to joining the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project water use agreement, which would in turn provide irrigators with water allotments that some consider inadequate.

Jackson said members of the compact commission were dismissive of McNeil’s ruling, indicating they anticipate it will be reversed on appeal. “They basically said the district judge doesn’t know what he’s talking about, which I found offensive,” Jackson said.

“That lawsuit is big and it’s a big part of this compact, and they are treating it as a bump in the road and it is not.”

Jay Weiner, an attorney for the compact commission, has been insistent that the compact is sound with state law and the state Constitution.  

Earlier this week, the Senate passed a bill sponsored by Jackson that would extend the compact commission’s authority to negotiate for another two years. The commission’s authority is currently set to expire this July. Jackson described the bill as a “spare tire” in case the Legislature does not approve the compact.

Salomon said he believes negotiations between the state, the tribes and the federal government are complete. “The work is done,” he said. “From my perspective, the compact was done in negotiations.”

Speaker of the House Mark Blasdel, a Republican from Somers, expressed reservations about the compact, saying he also thinks too few people understand its potential impacts. “I would really like to see this delayed for two years even if it ends up being the same proposal,” he said. “It just needs to be vetted.”

He noted that it is the last of more than a dozen compacts that have been negotiated for tribes and federal lands in Montana since 1985, but it is the largest and most complicated.

“I think it’s a very big deal,” he said.

If the compact gets legislative approval, it will advance to Congress and the tribal council for ratification. It then must be approved by the Montana Water Court, a process that is expected to take years.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.