Senator Tester moves to settle water rights of Fort Belknap Indian Community

Harlem, MT – Today, the Fort Belknap Indian Community (FBIC) moved one step closer to resolving long-standing issues regarding its water rights and providing certainty for all water users with the introduction of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes of the Fort Belknap Indian Community Water Rights Settlement Act of 2019 in the U.S. Senate.

“The Water Rights Settlement Act will confirm our water rights and provide critical funding for the rehabilitation and expansion of our Indian irrigation project and the development of our water,” said Andy Werk, Jr., President of the FBIC Council, the governing body of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes in north central Montana. “This will allow us to improve the economic conditions of our Tribal members. It will also provide certainty to water users on and off our Reservation.”

“During treaty negotiations in the 1800s, our Tribes agreed to settle and reside on a small portion of our ancestral lands in what would become the Montana Territory,” said President Werk. “Congress wanted us to become farmers and to irrigate our lands, but to do that we needed water. The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1908 that we have Indian water rights for our Reservation.”

President Werk was referring to the 1908 Supreme Court case Winters v. United States, which addressed water rights on the Milk River for the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. This important case affirmed that negotiations and agreements between tribes and the U.S. to establish Indian reservations included the water rights needed to make those lands a homeland. As a result, Tribes across the U.S. have entered into water rights settlements with the U.S. as a means to secure legal recognition of their water rights, funding for water development projects and certainty for other water users.

The Water Rights Settlement Act introduced by Montana Senator Jon Tester is expected to be scheduled for a Senate hearing in the near future. The legislation has broad support from irrigators who will benefit from the agreements, which will allow them to continue to use waters shared with FBIC, as originally negotiated in the Fort Belknap Indian Community Water Compact, which was overwhelmingly approved by the Montana State Legislature with bi-partisan support in 2001. Rocky Mountain tribes and conservation-sportsman groups also endorse the legislation.

For more than a century, the United States government mismanaged and neglected the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes’ water. The Water Rights Settlement Act provides funding and non-monetary compensation to settle the Tribes’ claims against the United States. It includes funding to improve irrigated lands; establish a Tribal water authority to administer water resources; construct domestic water supply and wastewater treatment infrastructure; and promote economic development on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation to provide opportunities for and improve the health and well-being of Tribal members.

The Water Rights Settlement Act also provides protections and funding for other water users to help ensure that existing water uses can continue as the Tribe develops and uses its water resources.

Non-monetary compensation consists of the return of certain lands to the FBIC. It includes the return of former Reservation lands along the southern border of the Reservation that were taken under the Grinnell Agreement of 1895. “These lands were taken when the settlers discovered mining opportunities in our sacred homelands,” said President Werk. “They told our people they would starve and their families would die if they didn’t sign the Grinnell Agreement, and that they could expect no help if they didn’t sign the agreement. It was an ultimatum, not a negotiation.”

The Act includes the return of a portion of the Grinnell lands needed to manage the headwaters of some of the waters reserved for the Fort Belknap Indian Community.

The Fort Belknap Indian Community looks forward to the passage of the Water Rights Settlement Act.

Remarking on the importance of this effort President Werk said, “Our Tribes, who have called this land home since time began, are in the best position to protect and manage our water resources.” He concluded by saying, “water is a precious resource and sacred to our people. This Water Rights Settlement Act helps us manage our waters in a way that will provide better infrastructure, jobs, and positive economic development that benefits our current and future generations.”