Fight over Three Mile irrigation system not over yet

By Jim Rokosch, Stevensville

“Whiskey’s for drinking. Water’s for fighting!” Most folks living in Montana have heard the familiar line more than a few times – it’s become a cliché in our arid landscape – and in most conversations, it draws some chuckles, laughs, and a few head shakes. Property taxpayers living in the Three Mile Gravity Flow System of the Bitter Root Irrigation District (BRID) are not chuckling or laughing these days, but a lot of us sure are shaking our heads over current and past actions of the BRID board of directors. We are mostly shaking our heads to say “No – No way!” to the BRID board’s current campaign of fear-mongering, misinformation, and twisted and selective legal interpretations to try and either trick or intimidate water users in the Three Mile system into signing a petition to create a Three Mile sub-district of BRID.
Why is the BRID board so intent on waging their sub-district campaign? Because they failed to plan for the long-term maintenance of the Three Mile Gravity Flow System once water users finished paying for the infrastructure, just like they failed to plan for the long-term maintenance and eventual replacement of the main canal pipeline and siphons. You can only do so much with JB Weld and duct tape.
There’s another cliché the BRID board perhaps should focus on rather than the “whiskey-water” one; it goes “Failing to plan is a plan to fail.” Now the board is looking for more money, and they see the sub-district mechanism as the means to get it by selectively taxing water users in the Three Mile system. Don’t be fooled or feel forced to buy in to the BRID board’s campaign for this sub-district. There is more than one provision of this sub-district that would give the BRID board additional authority to selectively raise your taxes for the benefit of the whole district. Do you not wonder why, with all the existing irrigation districts in Montana, no group of water users (i.e. taxpayers) has joyfully embraced this new taxing mechanism and formed an irrigation sub-district anywhere in the state of Montana? The BRID board is counting on the water users of the Three Mile system to be either scared enough or stupid enough to be the first. It’s not going to work.
The BRID board is threatening to not deliver water to the “farm turnouts” of water users in the Three Mile system in 2016 unless there is a sub-district, claiming that the Three Mile Gravity Flow System is a “Private Irrigation System.” Their claim is simply not true. Water users of the Three Mile system are individual irrigators in common along with every other individual property owner in the BRID. We are members of BRID, period. There is no existing “private” entity formed or operating under “Three Mile Water Users” or any other name. We are not a “private irrigation system” with a unique name registered with the state through district court proceedings, with a unique board of directors and unique set of by-laws. We are irrigators in common that are members of BRID.
BRID’s own set of Operating Policies, dated May 2010, makes it crystal clear that the irrigators in common of the Three Mile system cannot be considered a “private irrigation system.” Section VIII C of BRID’s policy document (p. 10) states “Before land can be included or excluded within a private irrigation system, a written letter of authorization must be submitted to the board of commissioners from the private irrigation system organization.” The BRID board cannot produce such a letter because no such letter exists. No such letter exists, because no such “private irrigation system organization” exists. BRID has a legal obligation to deliver irrigation water to “farm turnouts.” If the BRID board is really concerned about the District’s financial solvency and potential bankruptcy, they may want to think long and hard about the economic harm they will cause to families if, indeed, they follow through with the threat to not deliver water to the irrigators in common of the BRID that are also water users of the Three Mile Gravity Flow System. Families who have a legal right to the water BRID is threatening to not deliver. Perhaps the board’s time would be better spent on some sound financial planning and policing their own board members’ activities, rather than their current questionably illegal efforts to organize the creation of an irrigation sub-district.
Despite a deadline for signing the petition for creating a sub-district of March1, 2015 that was published by BRID, efforts to still get petition signatures have not stopped, neither has the campaign of misinformation, fear and threats. If you are still wondering whether you should sign the petition for a sub-district, there are many rea$on$ not to $ign. If you have signed the petition for the sub-district and now wish to retract or remove your signature from the petition, you can indeed withdraw your name from the petition. The BRID office should provide you with the affidavit form for your notarized signature requesting that your signature be withdrawn from the petition, or you can simply request the signed petition be given back to you. This may not be a comfortable situation for some of you that may have signed the petition, so a number of concerned water users in the Three Mile system are preparing a mailing with factual information regarding the Three Mile Gravity Flow System, taxing authority of irrigation districts and the new sub-district taxing mechanism, and information on removing your signature from the petition without having to contact the BRID office.
As another saying goes, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” The BRID board only has to fool 60% of the Three Mile water users with their sub-district petition campaign. Still wondering what’s the “real deal” about this sub-district campaign BRID is waging in Three Mile? Look for more information coming in the mail.