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<br />Reservation have implemented a similar permit condition strategy <br />in their water code, calling for "protection for fish, wildlife, <br />recreational and aesthetic values."[19] The Fort Peck Tribes are <br />also currently assessing the establishment of an instream flow <br />program on their tributaries to the Missouri River in <br />northeastern Montana. <br />Tribal governments have similar opportunities as states <br />to implement the various instream flow strategies listed in the <br />previous section. They also carry an important additional tool <br />with which to protect instream flows based on their history as <br />independent sovereign nations that made treaties and agreements <br />with the United states. In 1908, the u.s. Supreme Court <br />recognized that an Indian tribe has reserved water rights that <br />supercede non-Indian water uses established under state law after <br />creation of the reservation. [20] Subsequent court decisions have <br />established that these Indian water rights include instream flows <br />needed to support the fishing and hunting rights that tribes <br />retained pursuant to treaty. <br />The strength of this instream flow protection mechanism was <br />recently demonstrated in a case involving the Tribes of the <br />Flathead Reservation in northwestern Montana who argued with <br />local irrigators over water distributed by the federal Bureau of <br />Indian Affairs (BIA). Initially, the tribes filed suit claiming <br />that the BIA had historically delivered too much water to <br />non-Indian irrigators, thereby reducing instream flows and <br />destroying important fish populations. In 1986, the BIA altered <br />its distribution criteria, protecting instream waters in order to <br /> <br />-16- <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br />