(CN) — One of the final water-rights settlements between the United States and Native American tribes was signed Tuesday, resolving a generation-long battle between the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and the federal government.
Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and Blackfeet Nation Chairman Harry Barnes signed documents that implement the Blackfeet Water Rights Settlement and Blackfeet Water Compact of 2009.
Senator Jon Tester, D-Montana, and U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Montana, also signed the agreement.
Water rights have been a continuing and horrifyingly complicated issue in the West since Mark Twain wrote that he fell into a river in California one day and came up all dusty.
The Montana Legislature established the Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission in 1979 to help settle water rights claims between the state and its seven recognized Native American tribes.
The agreement signed Tuesday will go to the Montana Water Court and will begin the process for issuing a final decree of the Blackfeet Tribe’s water rights.
The agreement provides $470 million — $422 million from the federal government and $49 million from Montana — for water-related projects on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
The settlement resolves outstanding water rights claims on about 750,000 acre-feet of water on the reservation and recognizes the Blackfeet Tribe’s religious and cultural uses of water.
An acre-foot (325,823 gallons) is enough water to cover 1 acre 1 foot deep. City planners estimate that a typical U.S. family in the suburbs uses about 1 acre-foot a year.
The nonpartisan Montana Reserved Water Rights Commission has negotiated water compacts with the Montana Legislature. Compacts have been passed with the seven tribes of Montana — the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, the Crow Tribe, the Gros Ventre & Assiniboine of the Fort Belknap Reservation, the Chippewa Cree of the Rocky Boy Reservation, and the Blackfeet Tribe.