Montana’s senators in a bipartisan effort Thursday backed the Fort Belknap Indian Community Water Rights Settlement Act, days after a massive siphon broke on the Milk River Project just outside Babb, putting drinking water and irrigation for tens of thousands of acres at risk.
The water rights settlement is the final compact to be ratified with tribes in Montana, following the final approval of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Water Compact in 2021. The FBIC compact would put $1.3 billion toward infrastructure and economic development projects and improve the efficiency of the Milk River Project, which irrigates 121,000 acres of tribal and non-tribal land. It also has $275 million to rehabilitate the St. Mary’s canal. Additionally, it will restore 38,462 acres of state and federal land to tribal management.
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The compact passed the Senate earlier this term as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act with support from Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, but it was stalled as Republicans in the House stripped out the provision.
The compact has been in negotiations for decades and was approved by the Fort Belknap Indian Community in 2001, and OK’d by state lawmakers that same year.
Kristal Hawley-Fox, the water resources director for the Ft. Belknap Water Resources division, said of the action: “It was a good day for Fort Belknap today.”
“I was a little disappointed that they would use this catastrophe to do it. They should’ve done this a long time ago. They knew how dire things were. We look forward to better days,” Hawley-Fox said during the Milk River Irrigation Project Joint Board of Control meeting Thursday evening.
Kristal Hawley-Fox, water resources director for the Fort Belknap Water Resources Division, speaks at a regular meeting of the Milk River Irrigation Project Joint Board of Control in Malta on June 20.
On the Senate floor Thursday, Tester, the state’s senior senator who brought the bill to the floor and cleared it through unanimous consent, said: “This is no time to play politics. The siphon bursts that we saw earlier this week have left Montana families reeling. Congress can do its job. The Senate will do its job. It’s time for the House to act responsibly too.”
Tester said the timing of the break near Babb “could not be worse, because there are literally hundreds of farmers and ranchers who are currently depending on the Milk River Project to irrigate their crops.”
“The siphon failure caused thousands of gallons of water to flood the surrounding area, leading to extensive damage to local businesses in that area, and will damage irrigation opportunities for 120,000 acres… It is a vital source of water for north-central Montana water users and to so many farmers that feed the world,” Tester said.
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