After more than a decade of work to finalize Montana’s last water settlement, U.S. Senator Jon Tester’s bipartisan bill to finalize the Fort Belknap Water Compact today passed through the
Fort Belknap Indian Community Water Rights Act sponsored and supported by both Montana Sens. Jon Tester and Steve Daines, passed the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and will head to the Senate floor. Fort Belknap is the last tribal community to have a water compact in Montana.
For over 100 years, the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre people have been fighting for tribal water rights not just on their own reservations but for the entire nation.