Who owns the water you drink? How about the water in your fishing streams? Or in the ground beneath the dream house you're hoping to build? Maybe you know for sure. If you're like most Montanans, you only think you know.
The fact is, who owns what water remains an open question in Montana. Water rights are based strictly on seniority: first in time, first in right. Over much of the state, people's claimed water rights - many of them competing, if not mutually exclusive - have never been fully sorted out.
Two years ago, the Legislature finally acknowledged the need to speed up adjudication. Lawmakers imposed a modest fee on water rights, earmarking the proceeds to beef up the sorting-out process. It was an unpopular thing to do. Many Montanans don't fully grasp what's at stake. In any event, outcry over the new “water tax” coincided with a growing state budget surplus. The governor and legislators quickly proposed suspending or repealing the adjudication fee. Several bills to do so are pending in the Legislature, and there's absolutely no doubt that one of them will wind up on the governor's desk and get a speedy signature. The issue is as close to a no-brainer as this Legislature is going to get this session.
But let's pause here for a second and think. The state's not always going to have a billion-dollar surplus. Every day, every year we can expect new demands on tax dollars. To sort out Montana's water rights, money set aside for that purpose is going to have to be spent on adjudication and spent wisely. Even at an accelerated pace, the work is likely to take another decade. If the money runs out before the job's done, it's going to take still more money from taxpayers or water users.
If this seems like stating the obvious, we'll just point out that the Legislature started funding adjudication from the general fund more than two decades ago, only to later find more pressing needs for the money, which also never was adequate. As the years have passed, the job has gotten harder and more expensive. If a “commitment” from the Legislature were something water-rights holders could take to the bank, adjudication would already be done and Montanans' water rights would be secure.
We may have just this one last shot at it. At the pace of change, with the attrition of elder Montanans, if the job isn't completed this decade, it may well prove impossible - or so expensive it might as well be.
In eliminating the water fee, the Legislature is eliminating a sure source of funding for adjudication. Let's hope it's not also eliminating resolve to get the job done.
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