Wednesday, Jan 19 2011 4:29PM
Members of the Crow Reservation will now be able to claim some Montana water resources as their own.
The Crow Tribe has finally won water rights from the state of Montana, which is set to bring hundreds of millions of dollars in water projects to the group, according to the Billings Gazette.
The Crow Rights Settlement Bill of 2010 was passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama in December. It took 12 years for the bill to get through the federal government, said Crow Chairman Cedric Black Eagle, who told the newspaper that the legislation will be voted on by the Crow Tribe on March 8.
Under the act, the Crow Tribe will be entitled to $460 million from the federal government toward the construction of an irrigation system and other water system services, a $15 million settlement of the coal severance tax case from the state and water rights to 500,000 acre feet per year from the Bighorn River.
"It's for the benefit of employment of the people. And it's for the betterment of the reservation," Clara Nomee, former chair of the Crow Tribe, told the Billings Gazette.
The new law should help improve the economic conditions and provide financial stability to the Crow. Bloomberg News reports that the development deal could help "pull the Montana tribe from poverty."