NO OPPOSITION TO PETITION
by Robert Nolte
BALLANTINE – Randy Sian and his attorney appeared briefly in District Court last Friday where his quest for water rights was granted by Judge Ingrid Gustafson.
Nobody appeared during the court hearing to oppose using water at Sian’s Ballantine farm from the Huntley Project Irrigation District to irrigate about 320 crop acres of which 190.8 acres “is currently susceptible of irrigation from the District canals and water supply,” according to Sian’s petition.
The next step for Sian is approval by the Bureau of Reclamation which, according to Sian’s attorney, Patti Rowland of Dillon, has already been partially approved.
Dale Bilyeu, an irrigation district board member, said the district has “water to give him” and said the district was in favor of granting Sian full water rights.
Mel Brozek, the district’s new manager, was at the court hearing and told the judge the district was “ageeable” to giving Sian water rights that would be accorded to him next year.
Last month, a legal ad appeared in the YCN advising farmers in the area of the hearing Friday, Dec. 4, and invited anyone opposed to supplying Sian with irrigation water to appear at the hearing described by Rowland as “largely procedural.”
Rowland said she waited to handle Sian’s water rights case until after a Montana Supreme Court decision was handed down concerning a water rights case in Beaverhead County.
This dispute featured farmers who had water rights but opposed granting irrigation privileges to another farmer because the complainants said it would affect the quantity of water left for the irrigation district in that part of Montana to irrigate their fields.
