Following a narrow victory in the Montana Legislature last week, proponents of the Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ water rights compact may have some cause for celebration, but the controversial proposal is still a long way from taking effect.

Gov. Steve Bullock has been a leading supporter of the measure and is expected to sign it within the next week, ratifying the agreement at the state level. 

But before final implementation, both the tribes and the federal government need to do the same, a process expected to take years.

It was the last of seven tribal water compacts to be ratified by the state and drew by far the most opposition. 

Two previous compacts still await congressional passage: those for the Fort Belknap and Blackfeet reservations, which the state passed in 2001 and 2009, respectively. Three of the other compacts were passed by the state in the 1990s, taking three or fewer years to earn congressional approval, while the Fort Peck compact was approved by the state in 1985 and, lacking a federal appropriation, was subject only to state and tribal ratification.

As of this year, new rules govern how tribal water compacts are handled in Congress. They can only be introduced by the House Natural Resources Committee chairman.

Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the current chairman, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell in February announcing the procedural change. He said he also will require that both of their departments review the settlement language and federal appropriations for each compact and agree on the final terms with the tribes before he will hear the bill in committee.

Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., sits on the committee and said he plans to meet with Bishop next week to discuss the compact. Zinke said he will take the lead during the committee’s deliberations.

Although he emphasized that the complex Salish and Kootenai agreement deserves close scrutiny from Congress, he did not indicate whether he would ultimately throw his support behind it.

“I’m going to look at it hard. It was so contentious, and I recognize there were some problems with it as it went forward,” Zinke said in an interview Tuesday. “I had concerns because the process became pitting neighbors against neighbors and it affected off-reservation rights, it affected senior water rights and it affected the adjudication of water rights.”

Noting Congress’ history of moving slowly on tribal water compacts, Zinke said he hopes the lawmaking body can take action on it within a single two-year session.

While Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., has yet to say whether he will support passage of the compact, his counterpart Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., has supported the negotiated settlement throughout the process at the state level. 

In a statement from his office, Tester said he will seek bipartisan support in Washington as he works to move the compact forward.

Representatives from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, including council leaders and attorneys, have consistently campaigned at meetings and legislative hearings in favor of the compact, and the tribes are expected to ratify the compact. 

But because Congress can exact additional requirements from the tribes before it appropriates federal funding for implementation, the tribes likely will wait until the terms are ironed out before they act.

In the meantime, the state may begin preliminary implementation work before the compact’s final ratification, but that will require the Legislature to fund appropriations specific to the compact.

If it is fully ratified, the state will be on the hook for $55 million. 

An initial $8 million appropriation had briefly appeared in the House budget to start measuring water deliveries to irrigators, upgrading the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project and mitigating potential stock water losses. 

However, that money was stripped out earlier in the session, and the compact bill’s sponsor, Chas Vincent, R-Libby, said he isn’t optimistic about seeing it reinserted.

“It’s not looking like the House Conference Committee members are willing to put the money back in,” Vincent said Wednesday. “I’m just urging them at this point to put in enough resources to at least begin measuring and doing all the things we need to be doing on the ground to make sure irrigators are going to be getting their historical use.”

He added that because of the state’s financial obligation under the terms of the compact, any preliminary work not specifically budgeted for that purpose is unlikely since the cost would not count toward the state’s obligation.

Beyond the procedural challenges ahead, the divisive issue’s legacy likely will extend beyond ratification and possibly final implementation. 

Earlier this week, irrigators on the reservation filed a lawsuit in an attempt to stop Bullock from signing the compact bill. Opponents of the compact have maintained throughout the process that they will challenge the measure in court should the state ratify it.

“In a lot of ways, I’m glad it’s out of the legislative forum, because the next forum will be the courts,” said Catherine Vandemoer, who heads up the Montana Land and Water Alliance and has been a leading critic of the proposed settlement. “In the likelihood the compact would pass, we’ve had our attorneys working on immediate and long-term strategies since last September.”

Characterizing their legal strategy as “very aggressive,” Vandemoer said additional challenges to the compact will likely include opponents’ frequent arguments against the measure’s constitutionality. State and tribal officials have repeatedly said those arguments lack merit, pointing to case law and similar language in other tribal water compacts.

“I’d say there are five or six constitutional issues that arise under the Montana and U.S. constitutions that will have to be addressed,” she said.

Vandemoer also floated the possibility of a class-action lawsuit against the state, alleging that a large class of Montanans would be able to claim injuries such as property devaluation under the terms of the compact.

Melissa Hornbein, an attorney for the state compact commission, is among a team of state legal experts that negotiated the terms of the compact and have repeatedly asserted its constitutionality. She said concerns over loss of historical water deliveries and property devaluation likely would not be litigated until the compact is implemented.

“I would speculate that those types of legal claims will not be ripe until the compact is actually implemented,” she said. “I would expect any litigation we see now is going to be directed at the legal and constitutional arguments.”

Meanwhile, the tribes face a separate challenge from Jayson Peters, the chairman of the Flathead County Republican Central Committee. On April 10 he submitted a lobbying complaint to the state commissioner of political practices, alleging that the tribes and compact-aligned groups had engaged in improper lobbying activity.

According to Commissioner Jonathan Motl, the tribes have not yet responded to the complaint, but he expects they will request an extension on the 20-day response deadline and engage the complaint via a law firm that contacted him earlier this week.

“We’ll usually give them another 20,” Motl said. “In that situation, you want to allow them enough time to do something that in the end saves the commission’s time and produces better information for rendering a decision.”

Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com