1986-10-31 Char-Koosta News

              THE HUNTING MONTH
Two years of negotiation yield settlement of Crow Creek damage
A settlement has been reached between the Tribes and the BIA in the Crow Creek de-watering case.
The BIA has agreed to mitigate damage done to the Crow Creek fishery system with a small cash payment to the Tribes and a five-year fish restocking and rehabilitation plan that will also prevent fish from getting into the canal system in the area.
At issue were two instances in 1984
when Crow Creek, southwest of Ronan, was de-watered by local managers of the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project.
The project, when it began repairs to the Crow Dam, dried up Crow Creek twice, without notifying the Tribes, according to John Carter, a Tribal attorney. At a result, the fish population in Crow, and the environment that supported it, were seriously damaged. The Tribes filed a claim against FIIP and its parent agency, the BIA.
After two years of negotiation, during which both FIIP and the BIA's Flathead Agency underwent reorganization, a settlement was reached.
"It's a creative settlement," Carter said, "in that the system itself will benefit directly." The BIA acknow-edged its error and agreed with a plan that's better than "just throwing money at the problem", he said. The problem didn't end up in court either, he added.
The Crow situation is just one FIIP
The Tribes plans to file an appeal to a decision from a federal judge that negated minimum in-stream flows established by the BIA for 1986.
The flows were challenged by irrigators who said their interests hadn't been taken into consideration this summer. Federal judge Charles C. Lovell agreed with the irrigators.
troublespot. A larger issue is the controversy caused by the assertion of many - irrigators and past project managers ~ that the system's main responsibility is to its farming and ranching water users, most of who are non- Indians.
The Tribes counters that assertion by pointing to the Hell Gate Treaty and its fishing rights provisions. The Tribes also owns most of the land used by the irrigation system. Water rights are another consideration.
By agreeing to the five-year restocking and "rehab" plan, the BIA acknowledged its responsibility to the Reservation fish population and the environment, Carter pointed out.
He added that the Tribes' current involvement with FIIP and the BIA over environmental issues isn't new, as some might think. He said he's found correspondence from the 1930's where the Tribal Council asked the project to install screens on its canals as a fish-protection measure.
Last year, the judge agreed with the Tribes when it sued the BIA, which is in charge of the Flathead irrigation system, for ignoring fisheries' needs when delivering irrigation water.
More details about the Tribal appeal will be made public in the coming weeks.
Tribes to appeal in-stream flow ruling