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Q~.,,33 14 thereafter to the Commission at the January 20, 1982 technical subcommittee meeting in Los Angeles, California. The lands determined to be irrigable by Stetson Engineers were shown on a series of 27 maps prepared by them. ..";0 By the March 1982 Billings meeting, the State's experts had reviewed Mr. Stetson's analysis, and completed their own review of Reservation lands. The State used the "prime and important" land classification of the Soil Conservation Service and agreed that 487,763 acres on the Reservation were irrigable from the Missouri River. The State decided that their studies verified the irrigable acreage determined by Stetson Engineers, and ultimately accepted the Stetson acreage determination. Both Stetson Engineers and the State experts considered that a 300-foot elevation above the Missouri River would be an economically feasible service area. Therefore, the land21that were analyzed were those 'below the 2,300 foot contour. That covers about half the lands on the Reservation, including almost all reservation lands in the Poplar and Big Muddy watersheds. Some of these irrigable acres on the Reservation are owned today by non-Indians. The Bureau of Indian Affairs did a title study and concluded that 291,798 of the 501,755 potenti~~ly irrigable acres are owned by the Tribes or Indians or are within the Fort Peck Irrigation Project. The 2lThis was originally proposed by Stetson Engineers as an economically feasible service area and accepted by the State. Stetson Engineers also classified lands above the 2,300 foot contour, as did the State, but ultimately concluded that water could not economically be provided to these lands from the Missouri River. The Tribes can use the Tribal Water Right to irrigate these lands above 2,300 feet, and cut off new non-Indian uses to do so, but the most likely sources of water would be ground water or stored surface water. Storage would likely be expensive. See discussion, p. 34. " , I --' 22As noted, "Indians" is defined in Article 111(13) of the Compact to include (1) enrolled members of the Fort Peck Tribes, (2) any member of a federally recognized tribe, and (3) any person who holds or is recognized by the Interior Department as eligible to hold trust or restricted property on the Reservation.