go for an amendment to that bill to allow for taking water across the state 

 line into North Dakota, supposedly for the little town of Beach for 

 municipal use, even though the mayor and city council of Beach weren't 

 aware that they needed water, I was advised by one of the "good old 

 boys" from Texas who was lobbying for that and the Montana native that 

 they had lobbying here, that they would kill the bill if I didn't accept that 

 amendment. So I told them where they should go with the bill and they 

 killed it. 



I also had the pleasure of carrying a bill for Senator Gordon McOmber 

 when he was the president that clarified the language of exempting 

 irrigation districts from taxation. The Department of Revenue had 

 attempted to tax irrigation districts and the language needed to be 

 clarified. We were successful in that. During the 1977 session we had 

 two public meetings in the House chambers to get input from people across 

 the state as to what they thought the problems of water were and what 

 admendments they needed so the law would satisfy their desires. Under 

 the 1973 Water Use Act it was stated that all waters of the state would be 

 adjudicated and the Department of Natural Resources at that meeting made 

 the statement that it would take 100 years and 50 million bucks at the rate 

 that they were going. So we introduced House Bill 809 as a committee bill 

 in the select water committee that I chaired. And Representative John 

 Scully more or less maneuvered that bill. We got it through the House 

 and into the Senate. It had a million dollar fiscal impact on it and it was 

 finally decided to table it and put that into a study committee. We studied 

 it during the interim and during the 1979 session. This was the 

 forerunner of Senate Bill 76, which was passed and at this time requires 

 that all water rights be declared by January I, 1982. 



I've only got a couple or three more bills I'm going to talk about and 

 then I'll say something about instream flow. Some of the bills that were 

 very, very critical and very necessary were opposed, very extensively, 

 by some lobbying groups in this state that supposedly represent the 

 interests of the state of Montana and I'm not going to be too bashful. I'm 

 going to call them by name. One of them is the Western Environmental 

 Trade Association and the other one is the Montana Water Development 

 Association. In the 1977 session, Senate Bill 359 was the bill that would 

 have set up a preference system for granting water rights and most people 

 think that's what we need. And I'm not too sure the idea is not all bad. 

 The preference was set up just the way that I would set it up if I was 

 going to support that. It had domestic, municipal, agricultural, industrial 

 and other, and that sounds good. But when that bill came over to the 

 House it was worded, "in the event that industry used a preference then 

 no other higher preference could exercise a right against their preference 

 for 50 years." So that's the type of legislation that has been pushed in 

 our face in the House that really didn't show the interests. They take a 

 concept and then word it in such way that defeats the purpose. In this 

 last session there was a good example of that. Senate Bill 464, which 

 would have repealed the section of the 1973 Water Use Act that allowed for 

 reservation of water, period. This would have done away with all of the 

 municipal and irrigation districts and conservation districts and instream 

 flow reservations. And the aim of that was at the instream flow. 



