Today the Western Governor’s Association is beginning their 3-day pow-wow in Salt Lake City, the perfect opportunity for our Governor, Brian Schweitzer, to take the bully pulpit and call-out Wyoming’s water hogging.
The Bighorn and Powder River Basins beginning upstream in Wyoming and drain down into Montana's southeastern ag lands. (Image Courtesy: water-is-life.blogspot.com)
Just this past week, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Wyoming’s request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Montana over Wyoming’s stinginess with up-stream water.
Great news for Montana because the case will now move forward.
Farmers and ranchers in eastern Montana desperately need this water, a drum they’ve been banging since the 1950 Yellowstone River Compact was signed. The Bighorn and Powder River basins both begin upstream in Wyoming, and continue down-slope to the north into Montana’s dry, southeastern ag land.
Folks out there have had a hard enough time making ends meet without Wyoming squeezing them dry. The past half century has brought them shrinking tax bases, crumbling infrastructure, declining population, periodic drought, and increased competition from large farming corporations.
Things are pretty bleak.
Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, Executive Water Hog. If this were the old days, we'd let the Freemen handle this.
If this were Central Asia, farmers would be taking up arms for cross-border raids. But, alas, we’re fighting our war in the courts.
The funny thing is that with all our society’s technology, and “highly evolved” common law system grounded in property rights, we’re still wrapped ’round the axle of the same fights ethnic tribes across the globe have been fighting for a couple thousand years.
From our view, if Governor Schweitzer won’t call-out Freudenthal over the next couple days, we suggest he make a slightly different call…
His cousin LeRoy, a Montana Freemen militia leader, would be a great guy to pick up the phone and ham with. If these wanna be militia types really want to prove their worth, then get down to Wyoming and step-up for our state’s most valuable resource.
Track-II diplomacy meets armed insurgency, and we think the Governor’s cousin is the perfect guy for the job.
You folks in Jordan listening here?
Tags: Brian Schweitzer, Dave Freudenthal, LeRoy Schweitzer, Montana Freemen, Western Governor's Association, Yellowstone River Compact
June 15, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Schweitzer is too busy building political capital at the national level to mouth off to wyoming right now. If this were last term, he might do it.
After helping botch the Virginia governor’s race for McCauliffe, Schweitzer is keeping a low profile I bet.
June 15, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I’m surprised Schweitzer hasn’t taken the opportunity for another one of his planned “gaffes” on this wyoming water sharing case… His tendency to pretend to fly off the mouth usually stirs some kind of populist sentiment, like his past comments on guns, or his reference to Hillary Clinton’s crying in the McCauliffe race, which you know Montanans really got a kick out of. It’s not really Clinton country out here!
June 16, 2009 at 2:50 am
Water is an obvious clash point for Schweitzer and Freudenthal, but the larger issue is energy competition.
Wyoming has to be Montana’s main competitor for a national domestic energy leader… wind, oil, gas, and sure, water. I’m a little miffed that this hasn’t been a more prominent talking point for the Schweitzer Administration.