Under the subdued gray light of a winter sun, Germaine White, an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT), reflected on the Jocko River’s former glory, its gentle meanders through the shadow of Montana’s Mission Mountains. In days past, this river, known as nisisutetk in the Séliš-Ql̓ispé language, teemed with bull trout, and its abundant cold-water tributaries provided ample sustenance each spring. "We live at the backbone of the world, where the water begins," White stated, contrasting the scientific label of "resource" with the Indigenous understanding of water as "the source."

The Jocko River holds profound significance for the CSKT, yet over the past century, its watershed became increasingly disconnected from its floodplain, flattened and channelized by the advent of agriculture on the Flathead Indian Reservation. However, following a decade of intricate negotiations, one of the most substantial tribal settlements in U.S. history culminated in the 2015 Confederated Salish and Kootenai-Montana Compact Water Rights Compact. This agreement, which became effective in 2021, revalidates tribal water rights originally promised in the 1855 Hellgate Treaty while simultaneously safeguarding existing water users through a collaborative state-tribal water management system. This confluence of Indigenous-led restoration, shared governance, and dedicated funding offers a promising pathway for the tribes to reclaim their rivers and the lifeways intrinsically linked to them.

The ancestral territory of the Séliš, Ksanka, and Qlispe tribes encompassed a vast expanse of 22 million acres across western Montana, extending into Canada, Idaho, and Wyoming. These three tribes coexisted within a remarkably rich landscape, crisscrossed by over 980 miles of rivers and streams—a natural abundance that led Salish elder Mitch Smallsalmon to famously describe his people as "wealthy from the water." This inherited wealth, however, began to diminish with the signing of the 1855 Hellgate Treaty. Further compounding these losses, the 1887 Dawes Act, driven by a policy of assimilating Indigenous peoples into settler society, opened parcels of the CSKT reservation to homesteaders. Although the reservation constituted merely about one-twentieth of the tribe’s original homeland, the act fragmented the landscape, creating a complex mosaic of private and tribal landholdings. Many of the original place names within the Mission Valley were subsequently erased, supplanted by the nomenclature of the settlers.

"Place names are so profoundly important; they’re the oldest words in our language," White emphasized. "They came from our creation stories and the making of this place. In recent times, the land has been altered so dramatically that it no longer resembles the place names." This alteration extended to the very concept of water rights in the American West, where the legal doctrine of "prior appropriation," colloquially known as "first in time, first in right," became the bedrock principle. Prior appropriation is predicated on the idea that the individual who first claims water and applies it to a "beneficial use" secures the primary right to that water, superseding all subsequent users. During the era of westward expansion, settlers operated under the assumption that water was an inexhaustible resource, and water rights were often granted with little regard for future scarcity, leading to unbridled consumption. This commodification of water, however, served to sever tribal communities from their traditional lifeways.

Sadie Peone-Stops, a CSKT member and director of the Séliš-Ql̓ispé Culture Committee, articulated this deep connection: "We look at the waterways—the veins of our Mother Earth—as a way of life. Water gives all life. If people can understand that, they can understand what wealth means to the tribe."

Throughout the 20th century, tribal rights, including those pertaining to fishing and hunting, frequently clashed with the prior appropriation rights granted to white settlers on the reservation, resulting in a legal quagmire of conflicting claims. Stakeholders engaged in a race to the courthouse to solidify their water rights before opposing claims could establish legal precedent. Recognizing the growing complexity and the imperative to adjudicate all outstanding water rights, the Montana Legislature established the Montana Water Court. This specialized judicial branch is tasked with untangling over 219,000 water rights claims filed in Montana prior to 1973. Through a unified system and a rigorous adjudication process, the court endeavors to determine water rights across every river basin in the state, including reviewing and ruling on objections to negotiated compacts with the state’s tribes and federal agencies. Notably, Colorado and Idaho are the only other Western states with similar water courts.

The tribes’ pursuit of quantifiable water rights, which ultimately paved the way for the Water Compact, began in earnest about three decades ago with a series of legal cases filed on behalf of the CSKT by the federal government. The CSKT-MT Compact precisely defined the tribes’ reserved and aboriginal water rights, acknowledging their existing cultural and religious uses while simultaneously protecting all other established water rights, irrespective of their legal foundation in state or federal law. However, by the time the compact was finalized, over a century of industrial activity had left an indelible mark on the watersheds surrounding the reservation. Montana’s history of mining and milling had poisoned rivers, while unchecked development fragmented watersheds and depleted vital aquifers.

While the final decree for the compact is still undergoing adjudication by Montana’s Water Court, it definitively recognizes the tribes’ reserved and aboriginal water rights and their established tribal cultural and religious uses. The compact also ensures the protection of tribal instream flows, existing uses, and historic deliveries to irrigators. Its co-management plan uniquely integrates both Western scientific methodologies and invaluable Indigenous traditional knowledge to facilitate the recovery of waterways and promote more strategic management practices.

The implementation phase of the compact is largely spearheaded by the CSKT’s Division of Engineering and Water Resources, which underwent significant expansion in 2020 to address the compact’s extensive requirements. Over a dozen distinct activities have been outlined to reauthorize tribal water rights while simultaneously fulfilling the reservation’s water needs as provided by the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project (FIIP). The FIIP, constructed in 1908 as part of the Dawes Act, was designed to distribute water across the reservation for agricultural purposes. The project encompasses an extensive network of over 1,000 miles of canals, irrigates nearly 130,000 acres, and relies on 14 major reservoirs to feed its intricate web of channels.

"The FIIP was ostensibly for the benefit of the Indian," explained Casey Ryan, a tribal member and manager of the tribe’s Natural Resource Department’s Division of Engineering and Water Resources. "There were so many changes that our tribe was trying to navigate—and despite all that, we were highly successful at incorporating agriculture." Nevertheless, the project significantly altered the Mission Valley’s watersheds, and its aging, antiquated infrastructure increasingly revealed its inefficiencies. Consequently, federal legislation stemming from the compact prioritized the rehabilitation of the FIIP’s infrastructure and the remediation of the environmental damage it had caused.

The concept of "beneficial use" of water held such sway in the 20th century that any water left in the FIIP’s irrigation canals was deemed "waste." The Jocko River, the second-largest river on the reservation, suffered a drastic transformation—confined to a channel as straight as a bowling lane, severed from its natural meanders, floodplain, and side channels that once supported a vibrant ecosystem. According to Ryan, as early as the 1930s, water surveys indicated that the FIIP operated as a deficit irrigation project, meaning that in most years, the water supply was insufficient to meet potential crop demands. "There are over 34 creeks that come out onto the valley floor, and of those, most die in the canal that runs along the base of the Mission Mountains," Ryan noted. "We even have staff that can remember when the Jocko would run dry during the irrigation season."

Restoration efforts on the Jocko River commenced even before the compact was finalized, thanks to funding the CSKT secured from a landmark lawsuit in the 1980s known as the ARCO lawsuit. Mining and milling operations in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin had severely polluted the river—once the tribes’ primary hunting and fishing grounds—to such an extent that it became one of the nation’s largest Superfund sites. The $187 million ARCO settlement was utilized by the tribes and the state to finance cleanup initiatives. Crucially, the lawsuit also underscored the legal weight of the rights enshrined in the CSKT’s treaty and demonstrated the tribes’ capacity to leverage legal frameworks for environmental reclamation. Driven by a determination to protect the bull trout, a fish of immense cultural significance, the tribes focused their restoration efforts on the South Fork of the Jocko, recognizing its similar hydrological profile to the Clark Fork.

The bull trout was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1998, and the Jocko River represents its final stronghold, home to its last remaining migratory population. White recounted that the bull trout had historically served as a vital food source for the tribes, particularly during times of scarcity when other game was limited. This fish sustained the people in times of need, helping the CSKT avoid the starvation that afflicted other tribes during prolonged, harsh winters. "We always had that incredible gift of the water, and with it, the gift of the bull trout," White reflected, having managed the educational and informational components of the Jocko River Restoration Project.

The Restoration Project aimed to halt further environmental degradation by acquiring private land and relocating structures from the floodplain, while simultaneously establishing an interdisciplinary team to conduct environmental restoration. Today, the CSKT owns over 70% of its reservation, leveraging its tribal sovereignty to protect its lands, including establishing the nation’s first tribally designated wilderness area. The tribe also designated the South Fork as a primitive area, accessible exclusively to tribal members to preserve its cultural and recreational integrity. However, funding from the ARCO case eventually concluded, leaving the lower reaches of the Jocko still channelized and constrained against the Bison Range.

"When we got the Water Compact, the last block clicked into place," White remarked. The compact’s implementation phase has effectively picked up where the Jocko River Restoration Project left off, with "adaptive management" serving as the guiding principle. By reconnecting the river to its floodplain and enabling water to slow, spread, and re-infiltrate the land, tribal crews are meticulously monitoring and evaluating the river’s healing process. Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge has also been seamlessly integrated into the recovery efforts. In low-lying areas, tribal crews have established natural filtration zones utilizing cattails and other wetland plants—acting as living buffers that effectively capture agricultural runoff before it can reach the river.

The project’s overarching objective is to harmonize agricultural needs with ecological sustainability. More efficient water delivery systems can significantly reduce losses while still reserving adequate water for instream flows, a development that, according to Ryan, has already led to an increased return of bull trout to their native streams. Healthier rivers, in turn, contribute to soil health, replenish groundwater reserves, and stabilize the broader watershed upon which agriculture depends. "One of the beautiful things about the compact is it recognizes that water is a unitary resource, and that it needs to be managed as such," Ryan stated. "FIIP’s rehabilitation has been good for fish and farmers."

The compact’s foundational measures—including the rehabilitation of the FIIP’s infrastructure, the restoration of environmental damage, and the enhancement of water management practices—are undeniably crucial, but the preservation of cultural heritage holds equal importance. "The restoration’s importance cannot be overstated," emphasized Peone-Stops. "It’s going to bring back life, and with plant and animal life, it could bring life back to the culture in new ways." The CSKT’s Séliš-Ql̓ispé Culture Committee, guided by the collective wisdom of a board of tribal elders, has been at the forefront of the tribes’ cultural preservation efforts for five decades, providing essential guidance for the on-the-ground application of every project. Beyond landscape restoration, the compact is generating employment opportunities and fostering a renewed connection among members to traditional tribal lifeways. Peone-Stops noted that this resurgence is helping the tribe reinforce its core belief that every natural resource is inherently a cultural resource.

"The Water Compact is helping us to continue our mission: to preserve, protect and perpetuate the Séliš and Qlispe culture, language and history," Peone-Stops affirmed. "It’s not a one-and-done thing. It will help us continue to serve our membership into the future." In 2021, the CSKT also formally designated the Lower Flathead River as a cultural waterway through its "Cultural Waterway Ordinance," which mirrors the protective provisions of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, safeguarding a river’s free-flowing nature from development. Peone-Stops indicated that the tribe intends to extend this protection and preservation to other waterways in the future. "When I think about this compact, it’s not about control or greediness. It’s so that the water—and everything connected to it—is protected," Peone-Stops concluded. "We adapt with what we have to, but our tribal practices, caring for the land in the way we know how, has always been the same."