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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31

0650

( 4)

Beneficial uses for stock watering purposes in
existence prior to December 31, 1984, and any
new stockwatering uses not in excess of 20
acre-feet per year for each impoundment.

Paragraph 3 also makes it clear that the Tribal Water
Right on the mainstem of the Missouri River is not subordinated
to any water uses on the tributaries. Also, paragraph 4 of
Section A makes it clear that the Tribal Water Right is prior
to all uses of surface and ground water in the State with a
priority date later than May 1, 1888, other than those
specifically protected in Article IV.

Under Section B of Article IV, no changes in use
under state law can interfere with a use of the Tribal Water
Right existing at the time of the change, or change the amount
of surface water flowing onto the Reservation within any
watershed, or shift between grgynd water and surface water or
=rom one watershed to another. Also, if a protected
agricultural use is chanqed to a nonagricultural use, or a
storage reservoir is constructed, land must be retired from
irrigation service. Finally, any new non-irrigation uses are
subject to monitoring of diversions and return flows by both
the Tribes and the State at the expense of the owner.

(b) Background

The protection of state water rights in paragraph 3
of Section A as against future exercises of the Tribal Water
Right was essentially negotiated between the parties during
1982. At the September 1981 Poplar meeting, the State proposed
that the parties study and discuss a sharing of shortages on
the tributary streams. The tribal negotiating team refused to
discuss the matter at that meeting at all (Tr. Sept. 24, 1981,
pp. 87-88). After the State agreed in principle to the
practicably irrigab1e acreages determined by Stetson Engineers
in March, 1982, the negotiating team undertook to consider an
apportionment of the annual flow of the various tributaries
between the State and the Tribes on a percentage basis. The
tribal negotiating team also considered the protection of a
certain nu~~er of acre-feet per year of existing uses on each
tributary. We did this because a settlement then seemed

51see n. 50
, supra.

52At the Billings meeting on November 13 and 14, 1984, the
tribal negotiating team reviewed various alternatives to the
(Footnote Continued)

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