Remember the republican answer to the economy was "drill baby drill" for oil back then but today it is water wells that are going to be drilled over the reservation as white landowners drain the aquifer underneath our allotted and tribal lands for sales of bottled water to global water markets. The water compact denies the Blackfeet Tribe and allotted landowners the right to market our water to global water markets except as we get permission from our white neighbors, who got a "first right of refusal" to take away water projects from Blackfeet water developers. Chinese Government buyers were in the tribal office offering to purchase drinking water for export to China but the water compact will not allow us to capture these economic opportunities except as the white man approves of it. Is this Russia or the United States? Or Montana? A Bureau of Indian Affairs report in 1931 cited "The land status map of the reservation indicates pronounced tendency for the more valuable areas, particularly along water courses, to pass into a Patent-in-Fee status [border-whites] ahead of the less desirable, drier areas. This indicates a desire on the part of the white stock owner to acquire title to the watering places to be used in connection with the leasing of adjoining [Blackfeet] range lands. This condition must be given careful consideration in the formation and execution of any range management plans. As is indicated by a study of the location of the Patent-in-Fee lands in relation to the areas under grazing lease [Blackfeet allotments], the [white] owners of alienated Blackfeet lands are in a position to greatly influence and in some cases to absolutely control the use of adjoining [Blackfeet] allotted range lands. There are at least two Patent-in-Fee allotments in every township on the reservation which gives [political-economic] control over the entire reservation by white men in an exclusive white territory on the reservation. The area of the Blackfeet Reservation and Glacier County are coincident except that Glacier county includes eight townships comprising a narrow strip on the east, that are not a part of the reservation, and the reservation includes seven townships that form a part of Pondera county on the south. To date of August 20, 1930, Patents-in-Fee had been issued covering 295,422 acres and this acreage is increasing at the rate of 6,000 acres per year covering 20% of the reservation." The 2015 tribal/allotted water compact gives legal title to the hundreds of white patent-in-Fee landowners in addition to the water courses and water holes already stolen from the Indians. The robbery of the Blackfeet Cattle industry by Glacier county border-whites left the Indian cattle ranchers in poverty for a century. Is there anything left to steal from us? Drill baby drill is coming your way when the border-whites drain the aquifers under your property which is legal under the "rule of capture" federal laws. Do you have money to drill water wells to protect your underground water supplies or will they turn your land into a desert, dry and windy. The tribal council is bought and paid for by the state and federal government cash payments and the hell with the Blackfeet landowners and cattle ranchers, and all because we have nobody to represent us in Congress. As I see it there is no alternative for the trust landowners and heirs of the original allottees robbed by white men except to vote no on the water compact until we get our stolen land, water and oil returned with just compensation for a century of robbing the Blackfeet people. Tribal lawyers represent the tribe not us and do the bidding of the tribal council who do not give a damn about us landowners and support white men who they know robbed their own tribal members. Say no to the Blackfeet water compact! Chairman Old Person had me thrown out of the water compact meeting for bringing up the forced patents, and he told the Senate Indian Affairs lawyer to hold up our forced patents land claims. Who does he represent? What about hydro-power sites on all reservation streams, wind power, solar power, mini-hydro power technology uses the creek bed to generate power. Did they give that away too? I have spent 35 years in defending allotted land claims but I fear the chief and council have defeated me unless we boycott the water compact until our land and water rights are restored and border-whites removed to their "reservation" of Montana, go home emigrants!
Bob Juneau Sr.
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