Shoshone-Bannocks vow to sue if water agreement gets approval

BOISE – Only five protesters from the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes showed up at the Statehouse on Tuesday, but they came with an attorney and a warning.

If the Nez Perce Tribe’s water rights agreement is approved, the protesters said, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes will sue the state, the federal government and the Nez Perce.

“We are not going to stand by and let the state of Idaho or the Nez Perce Tribe exercise any kind of control of jurisdiction over our aboriginal territory,” said Bill Bacon, the attorney representing the Shoshone-Bannocks. “We will take whatever steps we have to take to make sure this invasion of our territory doesn’t take place.”

The multimillion dollar agreement – already approved by Congress and the Idaho House – still must pass the state Senate and be ratified by the Nez Perce Tribe to go into effect. It calls for the Nez Perce to drop their claims to nearly all the water in the Snake River Basin in exchange for annual rights to 50,000 acre-feet of water in the Clearwater River, $80 million in cash and land and a pledge from the state and federal governments to provide tens of millions of dollars for fish habitat and other improvements.

The bill would protect irrigators in the Upper Snake River Basin and some loggers and landowners in the Clearwater and Salmon river basins from endangered species-based lawsuits.

Though the agreement has the support of dozens of trade, industry, agricultural and private organizations, groups have galvanized against it as well – including many residents living on or near the Nez Perce reservation, some local governments and food producers.

The Shoshone-Bannocks claim the agreement wrongly includes rivers and streams contained within their aboriginal land boundaries, and that the state and the Nez Perce used the closed-door negotiations to secretly try to steal the Shoshone-Bannocks’ water rights.

Bacon said he had no problem with the part of the agreement that deals strictly with Nez Perce land, but objected to provisions involving places he claims the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes have historically roamed.

“A lot of (the Nez Perce) claims are on their own turf and God bless them,” Bacon said. “It’s when they start sticking their nose in our turf that we have a problem.”

But state officials have dismissed the Shoshone-Bannocks’ claims, saying they have more to do with historic friction between the tribes than any real water claims. Besides, said Mike Journee, spokesman for Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, the Shoshone-Bannocks voluntarily withdrew their water rights claims during Snake River Basin Adjudication court proceedings a few years ago.

Bacon has drafted a lawsuit against Kempthorne, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, the Nez Perce Tribe and the federal government.

The lawsuit would try to derail the agreement by asking a judge to declare that it violates treaty rights guaranteed to the Shoshone-Bannocks.