The white man got his water rights, the state of Montana got the entire flow of St. Mary and Milk rivers, corporations got to keep the 325,000 acres robbed from individual Blackfeet landowners, and the Interior Department is off the hook for complicity in the robbing of the Blackfeet allottees; but the current trust landowners got nothing! It is as chairman Old Person planned it from 1982 when he and his Bureau of Indian Affairs "handlers" rejected our allotted land claims and fought all these years to dispossess the heirs of original allottees by agreeing to "extinguish, forever" all past, present and future land claims of the allotted landowners and the tribe. Tribal attorney Whiting yelled at us in the only water compact hearing held with state, federal and tribal officials present, "You people don't own any water rights!" I guess we don't own any water rights now after the "people" voted blind to accept the water compact. That is the reality we face in the immediate future. The white people will drill water wells on their "fee" property next to Blackfeet trust lands and drain our underground aquifers while we can do nothing about it. The tribal attorney exposed all of the allotted landowners to exploitation of our water by severing our allotted water rights and removing treaty protections for the passage of the water compact which extinguished all of our land claims, forever. In other words, we do not have the money to drill our own water wells to protect our property from the white neighbors who do have the financial resources to leave us in the dust. We own 987,000 acres and not one acre foot has been dedicated to allotted landowners by the tribal council making our property worthless without water. Prior to the water compact many law cases and Congressional acts upheld our treaty rights to one acre foot for grazing lands and two acre feet for farming operations but some how we got robbed of those laws, treaties, and the word of Congress to protect our treaty lands. In addition to the theft of our allotted water rights, the BIA and tribal council have used the Cobell Case to purchase fragments of allotted lands and then take control of those lands to "devalue" the lease payments flowing to the landowners cut off by the tribal council and third-party Blackfeet leasers who sub-lease to white men thereby profiting from our family lands instead of us getting those lease payments. That is why you have pennies in your IIM account, the money is stolen by the tribal council and BIA officials who profit along with the white men in leasing allotted lands. The Dept. of Agriculture also pays the white leasers "subsidies" amounting to $7,000,000 collected from leased allotted lands. Where do we go from here? There is a lawsuit by a group of Indian landowners who accused the government of cheating them out of $450 million in potential income over the past thirty years due to their discriminatory treatment by the Department of Agriculture in refusing to grant loans and grants to the Indian landowners. Another lawsuit alleges that Indian ranchers were not allowed to access the Agriculture Dept. and are seeking monetary damages as well as changes in how the Agriculture Dept. administers its Indian farm credit and loan programs. The water compact has no money for individual Blackfeet landowners-no cattle purchase program-no credit program or loans or any positive changes in helping Blackfeet ranchers and farmers to improve their property. Allottees do not participate in the water compact or in obtaining loans and grants from the Agriculture Dept. because the tribal council did not include trust landowners in their negotiations or care about the consequences of extinguishing all of our claims, including future claims. The reservation can graze 55,000 cattle, but nearly all of the tribal grazing lands go to white ranchers due to devaluing allotted lands and collusion with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to steal our lease money "on the sly." I would like to meet with interested Blackfeet landowners to explore the idea of filing a lawsuit against the Interior Department and Agriculture Department for discrimination against Blackfeet ranchers and farmers in obtaining federal subsidies, loans, grants, and technical assistance in locating markets for products and crops grown by Blackfeet landowners or leased for a huge lease payment or crop shares or any other arrangement whereby we can get an income from our allotted lands. We have been left to die by the tribal council, so I recommend we get political and elect our own council members to watch out for our interests. Please let me know of any interest in suing Glacier and Pondera counties, and the federal government for mismanagement of our trust lands and water rights. How could we be left out when trust landowners own 987,000 acres and are entitled to 987,000 acre feet of tribal water reserves. Let us organize trust landowners and collect our "lost revenues" lease money and federal subsidies allocated to white men leasing allotted lands. I have the evidence for a lawsuit, so we need to organize and get water attorneys to represent us. There will be a criminal investigation prior to the lawsuit to uncover the "culprits" and jail them. I have requested a federal investigation on illegal acts of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council "collusion" to defraud us.
Bob Juneau Sr. Phone # (406) 493-0894, to meet me in Missoula or Browning for discussions.
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