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Modeling Hydrologic Impacts Of Tribal Water Rights Quantification And Settlement On The Flathead Indian Irrigation Project, Jordan Andrew Jimmie
Modeling Hydrologic Impacts Of Tribal Water Rights Quantification And Settlement On The Flathead Indian Irrigation Project, Jordan Andrew Jimmie
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The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) of the Flathead Reservation are a federally-recognized group of tribes (Kootenai, Salish, and Pend d’Oreille) located in western Montana. On the reservation lies the expansive Flathead Indian Irrigation Project (FIIP), which supplies irrigation water to approximately 127,000 acres of tribal and non-tribal agricultural land. The 1904 Flathead Allotment Act opened “surplus” land to non-native homesteaders without tribal consent, initiating the land ownership fragmentation observed on the reservation today. This legacy, combined with historically unquantified tribal reserved water rights and the antiquated state of the FIIP infrastructure, including water losses from unlined earthen canals, …