WSP03082

• File Number: 8064
• Description: Section "D" General Federal Issues/Policies - Indian Water Rights
• Date: 4/19/1985
• Title: Final Report of Tribal Negotiating Team to Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board of Fort Peck-Montana Water Compact
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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(2) Rights of the United States Fish and Wildlife
Service for Medicine Lake Wildlife Refuge out of
waters of the Big Muddy Creek as finally
determined by the state water court;

(3) Beneficial uses of water for domestic purposes;
and

(Footnote Continued)
versa), or move water from one watershed to another (say from
Porcupine Creek to the Poplar River). An irrigation use may be
shifted to another use only if acreage is retired from
irrigation.

To illustrate, if the water courts and the State
administrative mechanism determine that there are really only
100 acres irrigated outside the Reservation from the surface
water of Porcupine Creek with a priority date of December 31,
1984 or earlier, only 100 acres would be protected. The State
could not shift that protected use or the remaining 58 acres to
another location, such as Porcupine Creek on the Reservation,
or the Poplar River. Similarly, the State could not transfer
any of the protected acreage irrigated from surface water so as
to increase the protected acres irrigated from ground water in
the Porcupine Creek watershed above the 4,123 acres outside the
Reservation protected by the Compact. The State could of
course authorize 58 additional acres (or any other amount) to
be irrigated in 1985 or later, but those acres would not be
protected from new tribal uses.

Similarly, if the state water courts and the
administrative mechanism ultimate Iv determine that 200 acres
are actually irrigated from surfac~ water of Porcupine Creek
outside the Reservation with priority dates of 1984 or earlier,
only 158 acres would be protected. The rest would be
subordinated to the Tribal Water Right.

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In all, the State reported that filings in their water
courts on the tributaries cover claimed irrigation for
approximately 56,000 acres, much more than is protected in
Article IV. (Tr. Jan. 28, 1985, pp. 23-2.4.) But both the
State experts and Stetson Engineers believe these are greatly
inflated. In any event, only 32,000 acres total are protected
from future uses of the Tribal Water Right. In short, the
protected acreages in each category in Appendix A are a maximum
for that category. If the actual acreage in any category is
determined to be more, the Tribes are not obliged to protect
it, whatever its priority date. And if the actual acreage
irrigated prior to December 31, 1984 is determined to be less
for a particular category, the Tribes are required to protect
less.

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