1987-11-25 Char-Koosta News

              In-stream flow case reversed on appeal
'Paramount fishing water rights' gain circuit court support in JBC lawsuit
The Flathead Indian Irrigation Project (FIIP) is front-page news again after a relatively uneventful summer, and it's good news indeed for treaty rights.
In one of a number of pending lawsuits concerning FIIP, the 9th circuit court of appeals in Seattle ruled Nov. 17 that, "Because any aboriginal fishing rights secured by treaty are prior to all irrigation rights, neither the BIA nor the Tribes are subject to
a duty of fair and equal distribution of reserved Fishery water [as had been decided earlier by a lower court]. Only after fishery waters are protected does the BIA, acting as Officer-in-Charge of the irrigation project, have a duty to distribute fairly and equitably the remaining waters among irrigators of equal priority".
In other words: The Reservation's fish population, protected by treaty, will have its needs met first, with irrigators next in line.
"You could say we're pleased," vice-chairman Ron Therriault told reporters Nov. 19 in Pablo as he handed out photo-
copies of the 11-page court decision.
"We're pleased and satified because the court's ruling is supportive of the Tribes' position on fisheries," added Tribal attorney Dan Decker. "The points made by the ninth circuit echo what we had argued."
The case decided Nov. 17 has a history that began in 1985, when the Tribes sued the Bureau of Indian Affairs over FIIP's longstanding policy of de-watering streams and killing fish as it distributed water to irrigators. A committee of irrigators called the Joint Board of Control (JBC) (Concludes on page two)
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Late again and skinny to boot
Well, what can we say? November 1987 will not go down in the Char-Koosta diary as a time of particular joy:
Nov. 10—Our non-brand-name label-making computer chokes up doing the Poison labels, only halfway through the 2,700-name run. No one outside Montana will get the 11-11 issue.
Nov. 13 — We got permission to recreate the circulation list on the Main Office's IBM. We hope to have labels in time for the Nov. 17 mailing of the 11-18 issue.
Nov. 16 — Two days of typing addresses sees us only through the D's. Because we have to get the news of the Nov. 25 run-off election out this week, we have to get labels somehow.. .It's decided to have the Enrollment Technician run off addresses for everyone 18-years-and-older who lives on the Reservation, using the per capita list.
We end up with 3,240 labels in zip codes 598 and 599. . .even with hand-culling some 600 (who wants more than (Concludes on page two)