Fort Belknap sets workshops on water rights for stalled water compact

The government at Fort Belknap Indian Reservation is working to educate its members about water and water rights as a compact deciding exactly what the reservation’s rights are remains stalled in Congress.

Fort Belknap Indian Community Council is holding a workshop Wednesday and three Thursday including presentations by the reservation’s water engineer and legal counsel, with the title of the workshop “Know your water rights — protect our homeland.”

The Fort Belknap Water Compact will decide what the reservation’s water rights are and any money the government owes the reservation for past rights or infrastructure upgrades. It was approved by the Montana government in 2001 but not introduced into Congress for 10 more years. Congress has not approved the compact.

Fort Belknap was integral in the development of tribal water rights with the 1908 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Winters vs. United States that said the treaty establishing the reservation reserved the use of waters flowing through or adjacent to the reservation.

The meetings held on Fort Belknap Wednesday and Thursday will address questions and issues including:

• What rivers and creeks are included in the Fort Belknap tribes’ water rights,

• How much water belongs to the tribes,

• Why the tribes need a water rights settlement,

• What is the economic gain from enforceable water rights,

• What happened to land transfers,

•  Answers to questions from people at the workshops.

The first meeting is Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Hays-Lodge Pole High School in its commons, with meetings following Thursday from 9 to 11:30 a.m. and 1 to 3:30 p.m. in the Fort Belknap Agency Bingo Hall and 6 to 8:30 p.m. in the Dodson Senior Center.