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0623 ::-1 ." ~ , 1 -1 . \ I ~ :./ 4 \ Following the November 1982 meeting in Billings, the Tribes, the State, and the Department of the Interior believed that an agreement in principle was sufficiently close that attorneys for the Tribes, State and United States should draft a possible Compact. After a number of negotiating sessions between the attorneys, a Compact was presented to a meeting on February 9, 10 and 11, 1983 in Denver, Colorado (the seventh overall meeting in the negotiations). While no transcript was made of ,this meeting, it was attended by the entire tribal . negotiating team, tribal attorneys Chambers and william Perry, and Mr. Stetson and his colleague, Dr. Mesghinna. Mr. Lindgren and other Interior Department officials, including Joseph Membrino, the Assistant Solicitor for Indian Water, attended, as did representatives of the United States Army Corps of Engineers and of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. By the time of this Denver meeting, Gordon McOmber had been. selected to succeed Henry Loble as chairman of the Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission. Mr. McOmber had not been a member of the Commission previously. He and several members of the Commission attended the Denver meeting. Following the Denver meeting, it appeared that agreement had been reached and a Compact could be finalized for presentation to the 1983 Montana Legislature and the Tribal Executive Foard. A draft Compact was circulated in late February. (This 1983 Compact is Appendix B to this Report). Only minor changes remained to be made. In early March 1983, however, the State Commission abruptly advised the tribal negotiating team that it would not submit a Compact to the 1983 legislative session, and left the bargaining table to reconsider its positions. The tribal negotiating team was stunned by that event. We informed the State that the Tribes were prepared to resume negotiations at any time, but only on the basis of the substantive agreements that hadlbeen concluded and embodied in the draft 1983 Compa.ct. In January 1984, the State Commission sent to the Tribes and the United States a new draft Compact which the Commission believed could be passed through the legislature. The tribal negotiating team rejected thi's draft Compact out of hand as containing substantial deviations from the terms of the 1983 Compact and refused to negotiate on the basis of the State proposal. lCopies of letters exchanged between Chairman Hollow and Compact Commission Chairman McOmber concerning the State's refusal to continue negotiations are contained as Appendix E. I I \ J .1. \ i