Editor’s Note: The fol­low­ing research and com­men­tary shows just how far the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is will­ing to go. With the help of the EPA and State leg­is­la­tors they are aggres­sive­ly chip­ping away at pri­vate prop­er­ty rights in Amer­i­ca and as you’ll see from Jere­mi­ah Johnson’s report below, they are start­ing with our most pre­cious resource – water. That includes the creek in your back­yard, the well under your house and even the rain that falls on your roof. Once they have con­trol of the water, it will be they and they alone who decide whether or not you can show­er dai­ly, or water your crops, or how much drink­ing water will be allot­ted for  your fam­i­ly – even if you have an aquifer sit­ting below your prop­er­ty . But that’s just the begin­ning. The dan­ger­ous prece­dent about to be set in Mon­tana means they’ll have giv­en them­selves the pre­text to seize any­thing they want. The aim, as evi­denced by these and oth­er recent actions by local, state and fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, is to sup­plant all pri­vate own­er­ship in America. 

Water Rights on the Ropes: The Last Round for Free Mon­tanans vs. the Fed­er­al Government
By Jere­mi­ah Johnson

This is a “rush” arti­cle sub­mit­ted at the 11th hour of the bat­tle Mon­tanans are fight­ing to keep their water rights intact.  The aver­age cit­i­zen is try­ing to defend against the onslaughts of the Agen­da 21-fund­ed, oli­garch-dri­ven EPA (push­ing the CSKT water com­pact) and the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment.  The bat­tle is almost over and it doesn’t look good about one minute to mid­night.  This bat­tle is Montana’s “Alamo” of water rights and it is very impor­tant for all of us: a loss for Mon­tanans and a win for the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment will set a nation­wide precedent.

If the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment and its lack­eys win, the Iron Bell of tyran­ny will ring, and those rever­ber­a­tions will be felt through­out the U.S.  The feds will have estab­lished through state leg­is­la­tion an EPA mea­sure as a means that can be turned around and employed nation­al­ly.  Tak­ing the com­mu­nist “social jus­tice” plat­form and using Native Amer­i­cans as the tools in the “down­trod­den and pro­tect­ed class” role, the feds will incul­cate a foothold into pri­vate prop­er­ty rights.  With a win, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment will have a new tech­nique to lever­age cit­i­zens away from their indi­vid­ual and fam­i­ly pri­vate prop­er­ty rights.

My pre­vi­ous arti­cle on this sub­ject was post­ed on 3/18/15, enti­tled Fed­Gov Moves to Seize Water Rights from 100,000 Mon­tanans: All Sur­face Water and Wells.  I rec­om­mend that you read it for the back­ground his­to­ry on the Hell­gate Treaty and sim­i­lar actions being tak­en in oth­er states by the feds.  SB 262 is the bill that will, if passed, rat­i­fy the CSKT (Con­fed­er­at­ed Sal­ish and Koote­nai Tribe) water com­pact.  There was a piece penned by Mon­tana House Major­i­ty Leader Kei­th Regi­er, MT HD‑4 Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on 4/11/15 that explained the main con­cern: many Mon­tanans will lose access to pri­vate prop­er­ty, and that access will be giv­en to the Trib­al mem­bers (who already have access), their heirs, and their “assigns.”

Guess who these “assigns” are?  They are pri­vate com­pa­nies, out­door groups (Sier­ra Club, for exam­ple), and tour com­pa­nies.  They are the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, and the U.S. For­est Ser­vice, and Mon­tana Fish and Game.  These lat­ter two, by the way, have sup­port­ed the CSKT water com­pact and through­out the com­pact these two groups wrote lan­guage into it that exempt them­selves from future legal con­flicts.  If this bill pass­es, the Uni­tary Man­age­ment Ordi­nance will be cre­at­ed; this is a water court made up of a group of mem­bers of the tribes and oth­ers to serve as the water court of the reser­va­tion.

The afore­men­tioned court will have one main func­tion: to rule on issues that per­tain to non-trib­al mem­bers.  Bot­tom line: it is a court that is of the tribes that will rule on Mon­tanans by tak­ing all Montanan’s water rights out of the hands of Mon­tanans and plac­ing it in the hands of the Indi­an Tribes.  Almost 90% of all lands for agri­cul­tur­al use are off-reser­va­tion and the landown­ers have been pay­ing prop­er­ty tax­es for many years; how­ev­er, they will now be under the juris­dic­tion of the tribes.

That juris­dic­tion (as out­lined in the first arti­cle) will be reg­u­lat­ed by the EPA and enforced by the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty, with autho­riza­tion of the Bureau of Indi­an Affairs on behalf of the Con­fed­er­at­ed Sal­ish and Koote­nai Tribes.

 The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment is named as the own­er of all the water defined in the com­pact.  This is stip­u­lat­ed in writing.

As of this writ­ing, there are pro­ce­dur­al hur­dles that are going to be vot­ed upon and the bill is just one step away from being signed by Gov. Steve Bul­lock (D, MT), the same gov­er­nor that just vetoed a bill that pre­vent­ed Montana’s Sher­iffs from being oblig­at­ed to aid Fed­er­al law enforce­ment from any kind of gun grabs or gun bans (per­tain­ing to semi-auto rifles, erro­neous­ly and inten­tion­al­ly termed “assault rifles”).  A whole slew of com­mies are sup­port­ing and push­ing for this; they’re swaged in “har­mo­nious-sound­ing” names that false­ly bespeak of serv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty: The Ruby Val­ley Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict, and Farm­ers and Ranch­ers for Mon­tana, to cite a few.

There are armies of lob­by­ists, pur­chased-pup­pet-politi­cians, and adver­tis­ing cam­paigns in the mil­lions push­ing this com­mu­nist-sta­tist agen­da.  Every day on the radio, their hon­eyed voic­es pro­claim the “jus­tice, eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits, and over­all good­ness” of a com­pact that will com­plete­ly abro­gate and nul­li­fy water rights and all but end pri­vate prop­er­ty.  Every piece of land in West­ern Mon­tana with a well will now have a reg­u­la­tor com­ing to tax and con­trol it.

There will be anoth­er vote at the time this writ­ing hits the site.  I would appre­ci­ate any and all com­ments and use­ful infor­ma­tion that you guys and gals can find out there per­tain­ing to this and oth­er pow­er grabs of this nature.  When does it end?  Well, how it will end is not a ques­tion for some.  Any­one who sets foot on pri­vate land to try and reg­u­late water, per­haps AC/DC’s song, “Have a Drink on Me,” will be cranked up to the max.  Bet you can guess what type of “instru­ment” will be “play­ing” in accom­pa­ni­ment to the tune!  Hope you guys and gals are well, and I look for­ward to hear­ing from you.  Keep us in your prayers, read­ers: we’ll need it.