The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will file water rights claims next week that cover nearly two-thirds of the state.

The tribes plan to file 2,815 water claims in Montana Water Court as part of the negotiated water-rights compact for the tribes approved by the 2015 Legislature.

Tribal spokesman Rob McDonald said the claims are placeholders that will protect the tribes’ rights until Congress addresses the water compact. The Legislature, U.S. Congress and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council all must approve the compact for it to take effect.

The tribes’ filings on the water rights will put a hold on any action on water rights until the compact has passed all three governing bodies.

The issue of filing the claims was spelled out and agreed upon in the negotiated water rights compact, McDonald sad.

The filing of these claims, he said, preserves the tribes’ water rights in the event the compact is not approved by Congress.

McDonald said the 2,815 claims will be submitted for water rights on irrigation, stock water, springs and instream flows on and off the reservation.

About 39 percent of the water rights claims being filed are on the reservation, according to McDonald. The claims extend from the Montana/Idaho border to the eastern one-third of the state. The tribes began work on the water rights claims in 1982, McDonald said.

The claims will be filed with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation in Helena. McDonald said about 1,100 of the water rights claims address instream flows.