The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission will meet Wednesday in Polson for another water-rights negotiating session.

The meeting is open to the public and begins at 1 p.m. at the Best Western KwaTaqNuk Resort.

The proposed water-rights compact aims to quantify the tribes’ water rights and spend millions of dollars to improve the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project, but there’s controversy about whether it could impair landowners’ water rights and usage.

Negotiations will focus on the tribes’ recently proposed changes to language in the compact and its various appendices, according to Melissa Hornbein, a staff attorney for the Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission.

Hornbein said she couldn’t provide specific details of the tribes’ proposed changes, but said that “generally, there are certainly some things in the tribal proposal that address issues related to ensuring that irrigation delivery needs are met.

“Our (commission) proposal is going to attempt to address any things we felt weren’t addressed by the tribal proposal,” she continued. “I can’t say if there are massive differences in terms of where we are, and absent the commission’s negotiation team being present, I can’t go into details.”

Hornbein noted that the commission’s response hasn’t been finalized yet, but should be on the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation website within the next couple of weeks. She also pointed out that the commission has asked for a copy of the tribes’ proposed changes, but that the tribes “don’t have a finalized copy they’re comfortable with us posting.”

Both proposals address similar issues, Hornbein said, namely the overriding question of what happens if there is insufficient water to meet both irrigation-project water needs and tribal instream flow water rights.

A negotiating session held in early September between the tribes and commission drew a crowd of 80 people as public interest in the compact ramps up. Another negotiating session is planned Oct. 27 in Missoula.

“We would like to have negotiations completed by the end of November,” Hornbein said. “The internal November deadline is related to the idea that we need to try to get something to the [Montana] Legislature at or very near the beginning of the session.”

The agenda for Wednesday’s meeting will be posted on the DNRC website prior to the meeting, at http://dnrc.mt.gov/rwrcc/Compacts/CSKT/Default.asp