“The water quality within the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and within the Dry Prairie service area had once ranked as among the poorest in the country,” Rehberg said of the project that will bring quality drinking water from a new intake and treatment plant on the Missouri River, near Wolf Point.

           Rehberg and Burns, Montana's two Congressional appropriators, included $13 million in the 2006 Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee for the Water System, which combines separate ventures involving the Dry Prairie Rural Water Authority and the Assiniboine and Sioux Rural Water System, which lies on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation.

           Morales told the panel Rehberg’s legislation is needed “to address any possible questions regarding the Tribes' grant of use” of the water to Dry Prairie, and that the measure “which was drafted by the Tribes, Dry Prairie and the Department of the Interior, does this.”

          I’m proud of the work that’s being done and progress were seeing on this vital water project. These communities deserve nothing less than our goal of providing each with a safe and dependable drinking water supply,” Rehberg said. “The Fort Peck and Dry Prairie Water System is truly a congressional success story for the people of northeastern Montana,” Rehberg said of the water project that will provide clean water for nearly 30,000 residents over 7,800 square miles.