As you are probably aware, when the Board of Natural Resources 

 grantee! the instream reservations on the upper reaches of the Yellowstone, 

 they asve first priority to the instream and second priority, the lower 

 priori-^, to agriculture. And of course, the agriculturists were quite 

 upset about this. So rather than try to amend the law and clarify the 

 law, one of the concerns was that under the '73 Water Use Act, when a 

 reservation is put to the use that it was reserved for, it becomes a valid 

 water right. Of course, if you apply for a reservation for instream flow, 

 immediately it's put to the use it was applied for, so it's immediately a 

 water right and the contention of the legal counsel was that the Board of 

 Natural Resources had no authority to alter a valid water right. So there 

 was need for clarifying the language, but we didn't want to throw baby 

 out with the wash. And there was one other, probably the second hardest 

 fought bill I had there. It was a committee bill, a Select Water Committee 

 bill that did clarify the language giving the Board of Natural Resources 

 the authority to go in and reallocate instream flow. In order to get that 

 passed, we had to compromise and I think that's the art of being a good 

 legislator. That is, to take the best you can get, and know when to 

 compromise rather than losing everything. And some of the compromise in 

 that bill you might not agree with, but it's certainly better than what we 

 had and it eased a lot of hard feelings I think between the agriculturists 

 and the people in the Fish and Game Department. One of the things that 

 I've been aware of for some time, and I think it's probably beginning to 

 be more evident, is the action that they're trying to pit the agriculture 

 people against the environmentalist, against the Fish and Game or against 

 sportsmen. There's been an attempt, or discussion I guess--and probably 

 an attempt will be made in the next session--to amend the 1973 Water Use 

 Act drastically and do away with instream flow. 



I've been rambling on here for quite a while and I'd like to tell you 

 why I think an instream flow is important. If you've ever been in the 

 business of diverting water out of a stream, a pumping plant--i'm no 

 hydrologist, I guess I should tell you I've got my information and my 

 experience by hard knocks and carrying irrigation shovels over my 

 shoulder, and I think that's probably the best--but if you've ever been 

 involved in pumping water, you have to have a certain head of water, a 

 certain height, for a pump is designed for that efficiency. And when it 

 drops below that, the pump won't put out what it was rated for. And 

 when your stream flow gets below what your pumping system was designed 

 for, then you're down in efficiency. The major portion of the Buffalo 

 Rapid Irrigation Project has 310 CFS pumps. And you can cut the head 

 down on those pumps to 40 percent and they'll put out about 60 percent of 

 their rated capacity. At that time we could only run two of the three 

 pumps at a 40 percent head and if we went any higher than that, they 

 would suck air and they'd suck air and then they'd spin up and they had 

 an automatic device that would kick them out and it would take about 30 

 minutes to get them back on line. That project was in drastic need for 

 more water in 1961. It was a spring a lot like it is this spring back there 

 where you just couldn't get your irrigation water through. Now I guess 

 the reason that I wound up in the legislature was because I heard a 

 gentleman by the name of Phil Gibbs that was Water Planning Engineer for 

 Region Six out of Billings, the Bureau of Reclamation, and a gentleman by 

 the name of John Gores from the State Lands Department, put on a 



