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Date Posted: 09:24:23 03/12/01 Mon
Author: Anonymous
Subject: News and Issues

Advocate Investigator (no email / no homepage) wrote:

25 Date: 2001-02-09 12:16:24
Advocate Investigator (no email / no homepage) wrote:

story lead from Victor Rocha...thanks!
www.pechanga.net


Tribal group seeks recognition, sues Mohegans

By Eileen McNamara - More Articles
Published on 2/8/2001
http://www.theday.com/news/ts-re.asp?NewsUID=3B5EB7CC-418F-4407-A451-DD0A68508

9FC

A Norwich tribal group has submitted a petition for federal recognition,
claiming to be the rightful descendants of the historic Mohegan Indian tribe,
and has sued the federally recognized Mohegans, seeking gaming proceeds from
their Mohegan Sun casino.

The Native American Mohegans, who have headquarters in Norwich, claim in the
lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Hartford that Congress and
Connecticut officials wrongly forged a land claims settlement with the
Mohegan Tribal Nation after it was recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
in 1994. Two years later, the tribe opened Mohegan Sun, which last year
grossed more than $814 million.

The lawsuit, filed last October, claims that when they pursued their petition
for federal recognition, the Mohegan Indians wrongly excluded the Norwich
Mohegan faction. The federally recognized tribe now has about 1,600 members.

A spokesman for the Native American Mohegans said that while the group shares
the same history as the federally recognized Mohegans, the Norwich faction
wants to be recognized separately. Last week the group, which in 1992 filed
with the BIA a letter of intent to petition for recognition, delivered to the
agency its full petition and asked that the BIA put it on the agency's
“active” list.

Given the BIA's backlog of more than 200 petitions, it typically takes years
for a tribe's petition to be placed on the active list. This week,
Connecticut's U.S. senators called for reform of the recognition process and
a moratorium on tribal acknowledgments, in part because of concerns over the
preliminary recognition the BIA granted the Paucatuck Eastern Pequots and the
Eastern Pequots of North Stonington.

The Norwich Mohegan group has a financial backer, could make its own land
claims, and may seek to develop a casino, said Joseph T. Findaro, the group's
Washington, D.C., representative. Tribal officials would not say where the
land claims could be made or who is backing the tribe.

Because the federally recognized Mohegan Tribe barred the Norwich faction
from its acknowledgment petition, the Norwich group is seeking a share of the
gaming revenues from Mohegan Sun, Findaro said.

“We have several core families who have been part of the tribe dating back to
the last century,” Findaro said. The federally recognized Mohegan tribe
excluded those members, he said, because the Mohegans only included members
of certain family lines in its petition.

“They essentially disenfranchised our people, they didn't do the proper
research,” Findaro said. “We're basically saying that this 1994 (settlement)
did not extinguish our land claims.”

Jayne Fawcett, tribal ambassador for the Mohegan Indians, said her tribe
believes the lawsuit has no merit and that all true Mohegans were included in
her tribe's recognition petition.

“We were very careful to include all of the people who were Mohegans in our
original federal recognition petition,” Fawcett said. “Obviously, there were
a great many things that went into this. For instance, they had to be people
who had been members of the Mohegan community, they had to be able to
demonstrate social and political community, in addition to genealogy. They
had to be tribal.”

Findaro said the members of the Native American Mohegans meet those criteria.

“We believe we were the original tree trunk of the tribe,” he said. He added
that when the Montville Mohegans were denied preliminary recognition in the
late 1980s, the tribe used some of the Norwich group's history to address
deficiencies in their petition, which allowed them to win final recognition.

The Native American Mohegan group has about 645 members and is lead by
Eleanor Fortin. The group's members claim descent through John Hamilton and
some of his followers. Hamilton was a Mohegan Indian who split from the
Montville Mohegan tribe in the 1970s and whose followers regarded him as
“sachem for life” of the Mohegans. The federally recognized Mohegans have
acknowledged that Hamilton was Mohegan, but have said he adopted non-Mohegans
into his group.

The Norwich Mohegans have asked the BIA to incorporate into its recognition
petition portions of the Montville Mohegan tribe's petition, arguing that
both share the same history and that the Norwich group “should have been
included in the BIA's review” of the Mohegan Tribe's petition.

“The Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut is not the sole, exclusive
successor in interest to the aboriginal Mohegan Tribe,” Fortin said in a
letter accompanying her group's recognition petition.

Until a few years ago, the Native American Mohegans went by the name Mohegan
Tribe and Nation, Inc. The group became embroiled in a leadership dispute
several years ago when Moigu Standing Bear, a self-proclaimed leader of the
group, sought to oust Fortin. Findora said Standing Bear was a non-Mohegan
who was never considered a legitimate member of the tribe.

The federally recognized Mohegans unsuccessfully sued the Norwich group
several years ago in an attempt to stop them from using the Mohegan name.

Membership disputes among Indian tribes and power struggles between groups
are becoming more frequent as Indian gaming increases throughout the country.
There are several other Indian groups in Connecticut seeking recognition
whose members claim that they either descend from Mohegans, the Mashantucket
Pequots, or both, but do not meet the membership criteria for either tribe.

One family with members in Norwich has filed complaints with Congress that
they have been barred from membership in the Mashantucket tribe even though
they can prove they descend from known Pequots who lived on the tribe's
Ledyard reservation in the 1800s. Federal law, however, allows tribes to
establish their own membership rolls.
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.


24 Date: 2001-02-09 12:14:41
Advocate Investigator (no email / no homepage) wrote:

- Local governments receive 27 grants; plans include pumper truck, road
repair, buildings

PESHAWBESTOWN - A record amount of grant money representing 2 percent of
tribal gaming revenue has been earmarked for local governments, the Grand
Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians announced this week.

Twenty-seven grants totaling $1,058,727 will be paid to local governmental
units in Leelanau, Benzie, Antrim, Charlevoix and Grand Traverse counties.
The band makes those payments twice a year under a 1990 consent decree with
the state. The grants represent 2 percent of the band's video gaming revenue
at its Leelanau Sands and Turtle Creek casinos, meaning the band grossed more
than $50 million in the second half of 2000.

Tribal officials said the amount is the largest yet paid out by the band and
only the second time the bi-annual payments have exceeded $1 million.

The largest single award this cycle was $203,197 for the Leelanau County Road
Commission for road repairs on Peshawbestown Road. The agency also will get
$50,000 for equipment purchases and $10,000 to design intersection
improvements at M-22 and Stallman Road.

The Native American Liaison Program for Antrim County Schools also received
$130,000 to construct a new building on the Indian mission property in
Kewadin.

The Suttons Bay-Bingham fire and rescue squad in Leelanau County is getting
$123,000 for a new pumper truck. The department's 1987 pumper will be turned
over to the band's fire department.

Other grants included $100,000 to the Milton Township Fire Department in
Antrim County toward construction of a new fire station. Milton Township also
is getting $42,000 for a skate park at the township park.

Some of the other awards include the following:

- The East Jordan Firefighters Association will get $99,400 to install a
30,000-gallon water tank on tribal land in Charlevoix County.

- St. James Township on Beaver Island will get about $50,000 for street and
parking lot paving in the village.

- The Alba Firefighters Association will get $45,000 to buy five air packs
and a thermal imaging camera.

- Two of the projects in Grand Traverse County include $30,000 to fund the
River Care program and $15,000 toward entertainment costs at the Women's
Resource Center annual fund-raiser.

- Leelanau County's sheriff's department will get $15,750 to install video
cameras in patrol units.

- Elk Rapids village police will get $21,898 for a mobile speed monitor and
two in-car video cameras.

- Helena Township in Antrim County will get about $25,000 for renovations to
the Alden Harbor.


Copyright © The Traverse City Record-Eagle. All rights reserved.
{ref: MICHIGAN }
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.


23 Date: 2001-02-08 17:52:52
Advocate Investigator (no email / no homepage) wrote:

Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 05:57:49 -0800

West Virginia Town Hopes to Reclaim 600 American Indian Bodies/Reburial
sought for remains sitting in Ohio State lab


By: FRANCIS X. CLINES,
'New York Times' / Thursday, February 8, 2001
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/02/08/M

N189824.DTL

BUFFALO, W.Va. -- "Thirty-five years after 600 American Indian graves were
opened and the bodies packed off to a university in the name of science,
this small riverfront town is attempting to reclaim and rebury the bodies in
the name of sacred obligation.
Under a repatriation proposal, the bodies, stored in plastic bags at Ohio
State University, would be reinterred here in dedicated tribal ground.
Far from controversial, the plan has been endorsed by town leaders and
descendants of various Indian communities that found refuge and anonymity in
the back hills of West Virginia after the conquering American government
ordered most Indians to move west of the Mississippi.
"This is not an Indian issue -- it's a human being issue," Maggie Crawford,
a resident of mixed white and Nanticoke blood, said as she roamed across the
snow and corn stipple of a 50-acre farm field beside the Kanawha River. This
serene spot was where the bodies were discovered and removed in a 1960s
excavation that had gone largely forgotten until recently, when the town
began considering a port development plan.
"These people need to go back into their ground," said Crawford, who visited
the remains recently at Ohio State in Columbus with her husband, Basil,
who claims Cherokee blood. "This storage concept has got to stop."
The Crawfords left earth and corn from the Buffalo tract in a gourd on top
of the acid-resistant cardboard boxes containing the bodies. "It's amazing
to see: The boxes line the laboratory walls three deep and 8 feet high,"
Basil Crawford declared, as if he had visited some eerie outpost of limbo.
But he praised the care taken by the university across the decades.
"We've been watching over them," said Dr. Paul W. Sciulli, the university
anthropologist in charge, who emphasized no elaborate tests had been
performed on the remains in the intervening years. "I'd like to see them
protected more than anything else." He endorses the Buffalo repatriation but
with the hope that a discreet process can be worked out so that qualified
scientists retain some access to the remains for legitimate purposes.
"There's a long proto-history with a lot of blanks to be filled in," he
said, noting that the first recorded history in the Ohio Valley region did
not occur until 1750, when French explorers came through. "These remains are
valuable in the search to find out what happened and fill those gaps." Given
the valley's early tribal cultures, fresh scientific techniques might
uncover valuable insights, he added.
The bodies date from the Fort Ancient people of the 1600s and earlier, a
heyday of river trading tribes, before European settlers overtook them. The
remains make up one of the largest such collections in what has been a long-
running, continent-wide grievance for American Indians. It touches on the
problem of Indian cemetery desecration in the face of increasing rural land
development as well as on the needs of science in studying remains and
artifacts to establish vital facts of American prehistory.
The 10-year-old Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of
the federal government has been credited with gradual progress on this
highly sensitive issue, with museum and tribal leaders seeking areas of
agreement over the basic questions of who can rightfully claim Indian
remains and artifacts and who determines their educational value for
succeeding generations. But the law does not pertain to West Virginia, which
has no federally recognized tribes. Buffalo residents, however, are seeking
the act's protection by soliciting the sponsorship of such tribes with past
ties to the area. The local proposal already has been blessed by the eastern
band of Cherokee in North Carolina and the Shawnees of Oklahoma.
"We will honor your traditions with the same respect we wish to honor your
ancestors," Buffalo Mayor Bill Whittington assured the tribes in a letter
endorsed by Mark Harris, chairman of the local historical society, and
Maggie Crawford. The unusual proposal from this town of 1,042 residents
would, in effect, help atone for a centuries-old practice in which numerous
Indian grave sites here in the rich river trade routes were simply pushed
into the river as developers claimed the land, local residents say. Some
tell of old bones routinely discovered along the shore, and many residents
grew up innocently collecting arrowheads and other artifacts, which are
still rife in the old Indian country that extends for miles along the river.
"I was a 10-year-old kid when they opened the Indian graves, and I remember
we all went down to watch," said Leah Higgenbothal, a teacher at the Buffalo
Elementary School. She enthusiastically joined the repatriation drive
started by the Crawfords two years ago when they first learned of Indian
bodies having been removed in the mid-1960s in an industrial development
test that turned into an archaeological dig. "I remember as a girl watching
and wondering why they were taken away," Higgenbothal said. "And now people
I talk to in town think this proposal really should happen. I mean, these
remains are our people,
in a sense. They lived here just like us for hundreds of years. They should
be reburied here with us."
The town proposal hinges in part on a donation of the old burial acreage by
the current owner, the American Electric Power Co. The utility's initial
reaction has been positive, said Jeri Matheny, a company spokeswoman. "We
feel pretty good about the process so far and hope to satisfy everyone
involved," Matheny said. "But it's important to make sure we know all the
details of the issues involved before a final decision."
Currently, the Army Corps of Engineers is conducting a feasibility study of
the town's tentative plan to build a new port on land adjacent to the
proposed burial tract. Whether the port goes forward or not, the town and
the historical society want the repatriation to be completed and to include
an educational center at the site that they would run in conjunction with
tribal sponsors."

©2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page C2
{ref: OHIO WEST VIRGINIA NAGPRA }


Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.


22 Date: 2001-02-08 17:50:56
Advocate Investigator (no email / no homepage) wrote:

Reno sues Truckee sanitation agency

By DARIN OLDE,
Sierra Sun
http://www.tahoe.com/sun/stories.2.8.01/NEWS/newssuit08Feb2590.html

In an effort to protect Pyramid Lake and the Truckee River, the City of Reno,
the City of Sparks and the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe have filed suit to halt
approval of $42 million in expansion plans for the Tahoe-Truckee Sanitation
Agency's water reclamation plant, an action that could stall future growth
for the entire North Shore.

The suit, filed Jan. 19 in Nevada County Superior Court, alleges the
sanitation agency and the board of directors failed to comply with the
California Environmental Quality Act by approving an environmental impact
report despite unresolved impacts on the Truckee River and Pyramid Lake.

Tahoe-Truckee Sanitation Agency officials, however, say they have complied
with California water quality standards, and that any deterioration in water
quality occurs after the water crosses the state line into Nevada.

Utility officials and area planners say the water reclamation expansion plan
is critical to the economic future of the region.

With the number of major developments taking place in Truckee, Martis Valley
and Olympic Valley, delaying plant expansion and suspending new sewer permits
could bring developments across North Lake Tahoe to a standstill.

The water reclamation plant, which serves five North Shore sewer collection
districts, including Truckee Sanitation District, North Tahoe Public Utility
District and Tahoe City Public Utility District, treats up to 7.4 million
gallons of wastewater per week.

The reclamation plant reached 80 percent of its capacity two years ago,
according to Tahoe-Truckee Sanitation Agency General Manager Craig Woods.

Woods then approached the board of directors with the possibility of engaging
in an expansion study, which the board approved. The study, which took two to
three years to complete and cost approximately $1 million, was approved by
the board Dec. 19, 2000.

"Reno, Sparks and the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe on the last day of the last
hour opposed the environmental documents we submitted for the plant
expansion," said Woods. He added that the agency has always prided itself on
superb water quality standards. "We have never had a significant water
quality violation."

Woods said the lawsuit raises three primary concerns: limited water
allocations, a possible $15 million financial impact on existing customers
and the financial impact on new developments in the North Tahoe region.

"The state of California has negotiated water allocations through the Truckee
River Operating Agreement. Now we may not receive those allocations," he
said. "It appears the downstream water interests are attempting to prevent
California's use of this water supply, and - and this is my opinion - that
other interests were not negotiated in good faith."

Woods said that the cities of Reno and Sparks and the Pyramid Lake Paiute
tribe want the existing technology at the reclamation plant to be replaced
with technology that could cost up to $15 million, bringing the total project
cost to $57 million.

Currently, the cost for a sewer permit from the sanitation agency is
approximately $4,000, but that could rise with these new costs.

"If downstream interests are successful, that cost would increase
significantly," Woods said.

Reno, Sparks and the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe filed to void the
certification of the environmental impact report, void the sanitation
agency's approval of the project and direct them to prepare a legally
adequate report before any contractual work can begin.

The plaintiffs allege degradation of water quality and water habitats in both
the river and the lake were not addressed, further endangering the Cui-ui and
Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. They also allege the Tahoe-Truckee Sanitation
Agency violates water quality standards in California and Nevada.

"The project would dramatically increase pollutant loadings to the Truckee
River and Pyramid Lake, which are regional and national water bodies of
extreme importance for both water supply, recreation and the maintenance of
significant biological resources," wrote the plaintiffs in their challenge
submitted to the court.

"Generally speaking (the Tahoe-Truckee Sanitation Agency) has had a very good
record complying with their effluent limitations," said Scott Ferguson,
senior water resource control engineer for Lahontan Regional Water Quality
Control Board. "The river did exceed the water quality standards ... for a
brief period in the late '90s," he said, "but I don't think (the sanitation
agency) is solely responsible for that."

Ferguson said the statistical methods for measuring water quality standards
in California are not the same as the methods used in Nevada.

"Theoretically (the sanitation agency) could be compliant with California
standards and out of compliance in Nevada," he said.

Ferguson said differences in the statistical methods is an issue the Lahontan
Regional Water Quality Control Board will need to handle, but it will be
independent of the lawsuit.

"Basically you have three government agencies placing standards on the
Truckee River," he said, referring to California, Nevada and the Paiute tribe.

No dates have been set for legal proceedings, but the sanitation agency
estimates the expansion project will take two years to complete, and hopes to
have the expansion on-line by 2004, when some of the larger developers in the
Tahoe-Truckee area will be forced to seek permits or abandon plans.

"There are sewer permits still available," Woods said, "but there is not
enough for the various known projects which are out there."."

http://www.tahoe.com/



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doctrine of international copyright law.


21 Date: 2001-02-08 17:48:45
Sacred Heart (no email / no homepage) wrote:

Natives gather 'to save our children'
Suicide no longer a forbidden topic as elders meet to share stories, advice

Roy MacGregor
National Post
http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/columnists/story.html?f=/stories/200102

08/468318.html

THUNDER BAY - The room has been carefully prepared.

Dream catchers near the windows, a special table for the elders, a cleared
circle in the centre for the drummers -- and a jumbo box of Kleenex by the
entrance.

"Be prepared," says volunteer Beverley Fawcett. "We're going to need this
over the next few days."

They have come to this second-floor ballroom of the old Prince Arthur Hotel
from all over Northern Ontario and into Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Crees and
Ojibway from some of the most-isolated, most-gut-wrenching communities in all
of Canada to discuss what was once a forbidden subject, but is today a
necessary one.

Native suicide.

Two years ago, Leonard Bananish, an Ojibway chaplain at the Thunder Bay
District Jail had the idea of bringing particular people into a Gathering
Circle on suicide prevention. Instead of academics, the knowledge would come
from village elders. Instead of psychologists and psychiatrists, the
empirical evidence would come from those who had been to the brink and,
somehow, managed to turn away in another direction.

"I just felt there was something missing," Bananish says. "I wanted to
explore the spiritual aspect of all this -- native spirituality."

The laughing eyes of this big, lumbering man betray his own, deeper reasons.
Five brothers lost already. Fires, accidents, freezing to death ... every one
of them tied directly to alcoholism, how many, he wonders, deliberate?

Two years ago when the call went out, 43 people showed up. Wednesday morning,
when Bananish's second gathering -- called Aandaanmad, "Changing Winds" --
opened with a traditional smudge ceremony, the fire marshal's dictum of "no
more than 225" people in the hotel ballroom was in jeopardy.

The winds are indeed changing. People are beginning to ask aloud how it is
that this remarkable country called Canada could, year in and year out, be
chosen the No. 1 nation in the world for its quality of life -- and yet this
same country could hold a massive, scattered Aboriginal population that live
in Third World conditions.

In recent months the rest of the country has been finally hearing the stories
the small hidden communities have known for decades: Sheshatshiu, Davis Inlet
... not all that far from here little Pikangikum in northeast Manitoba where,
out of a population of only 1,700, 11 people killed themselves last year
alone. Eight of them were female and, of that eight, five were girls, all 13
years of age. The method of choice: hanging. The cold mathematics of it: 36
times the national average for suicides.

British sociologist Colin Samson, who works for Survival International, says
that the Pikangikum First Nation suicide rate may, in fact, be the highest
community rate in the entire world. Suicides on Ontario reserves -- many of
them from the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation that covers much of this area -- reached
an all time high in 2000, making Northern Ontario the most disturbing region
for suicide in all of Canada.

Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come has called on the
government to forge a "national policy" on native suicide.

Nothing, however, has yet been done. The U.K.-based Survival International
says Canada is simply in a state of "massive cultural denial" over this issue
that seems to garner attention only if it involves something so dramatic as
youngsters videotaping themselves on the verge of taking their own troubled
lives.

All day Wednesday, Ojibway and Cree elders took to the microphone to talk to
a packed, warm crowd that would not dare a quick cough or early exit.

Saskatoon's Walter Linklater talked of living with his grandparents' in the
northwestern Ontario bush in the 1940s -- "One thing about the trap line,
there's no alcohol or drugs" -- and being snatched away at age six and sent
off to various residential schools where he was "assimilated and annihilated"
until he had lost his language and no longer had any sense of who he was.

Residential school, he said, forced the children to become totally dependent
on church and school until they had lost all sense of independence. A bright
student, he was earmarked to teach himself and sent out to a rural school
where, within two years, he had become an alcoholic. He lost his teaching
jobs, drifted, and ended up in the streets of this same city until one day in
the 1970s he found himself so befuddled that, in heavy fog down by the water,
he says he spent two hours singing Hank Williams' love songs to a stump.

For the last 28 years he has been sober and determined to get other natives
to return to their own beliefs. Working with his wife, Maria, he has brought
healing circles and sweat lodges into the prison system with success and the
two of them, Walter now 61 and Maria 59, have had 350 foster children pass
through their home.

"We have to go back to our culture," says Maria Linklater. "We have to save
our young children."

More militant than her husband, she believes that, "First Nations people have
become an industry" in Canada, and that it can even be argued that certain
people, social workers and bureaucrats "benefit from our suicides." The
residential school may have gone, she says, "but they're still taking away
our children."

Another Elder, Katherine Green of Winnipeg, agreed that the one significant
trait shared by all troubled native youth is a profound sense of not knowing
who they are. Somehow, native identity has been stripped away; somehow it
must be put back, with pride.

She talked about what it is like to be on the front lines of this disturbing
story. A Grade 9 dropout who later became both a registered nurse and a
social worker, she told of finding native children as young as eight and nine
years of age working as prostitutes on the streets of Winnipeg. She spoke of
staying up until four o'clock in the morning to talk down youngsters high on
drugs. She talked about how she cringes when the phone rings and it is a
young voice saying, "Kathy, I'm just not worth it. I want to end my life."

With those calls, however, there is still a chance.

"It's the ones who don't talk about it that most scare you," says Leonard
Bananish. "They're the ones who seem to have everything together -- and then
..."

That, he says, is why these people have come together, to begin talking
openly about something that usually only gets talked about after the fact,
when it is too late.

"You can make a difference," Katherine Green all but shouted to the crowd.
And Leonard Bananish, the jail chaplain, agrees.

"If you're able to do one thing," he says. "If someone, somewhere, gains
something out of this. Then that has to be worth it."

Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.


20 Date: 2001-02-08 17:46:43
Advocate Investigator (no email / no homepage) wrote:

Coal plans stir controversy
By JIM GRANSBERY
Of The Gazette Staff
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?section=local&display=content/local/c

oal.inc

Enthusiasm for added coal mining and construction of a new coal-fired
generating plant in Eastern Montana waxes and wanes depending on where one
lives along the Tongue River.

Upstream, the proposal is seen as sacrificing the needs of agriculture. And
the president of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe said she was concerned about
Gov. Judy Martz’s request for the immediate transfer of the federal Otter
Creek coal tracts to the state of Montana.

In Custer County, two commissioners did not hesitate Wednesday in supporting
the idea of a coal-fired generating plant in their neighborhood.

“It would be wonderful,” said Duane Mathison, Custer County commissioner.
“It would be a godsend. It would greatly reduce the homeowners tax.”

Mathison was responding to news that Martz had asked the new federal
secretary of the interior to quickly transfer 11 sections of federal coal
land near Ashland to the state for the purpose of developing power-generating
facilities.

Now, building an electrical generating plant in southeastern Montana,
possibly in Miles City, “might be a reality, not just talk,” Mathison said.

Commissioner Dan Connors said he also supports the idea, “just on the tax
base. We would be like Rosebud County. The mill value would jump.”

Rosebud County is the home of Colstrip Units 1-4 generating plants, which
increase the taxable value of the county significantly compared to Custer
County next door. Connors said a taxing mill in Custer County is worth
$14,383 compared to Rosebud’s $170,000.

But the proposed development is not a positive for at least one Tongue River
rancher.

Wally McRae, a long-time opponent of the proposed Tongue River Railroad, said
he is tired of agriculture being the “expendable industry.”

“My biggest fear is for the water,” he said.

McRae said he was not convinced large coal-fired energy plants are the answer
to the energy shortage.

“They should build smaller ones run by a diversity of fuels,” he said. “Put
them in declining population areas that have enough population to construct
and operate them. Build four, 50-megawatt plants, not a 200. Not a 350 or
500.”

He said the added coal tracts are “quid pro quo on the part of the governor
for Gustafson.”

Mike Gustafson is president of Wesco Resources of Billings and developer of
the Tongue River Railroad, which would haul coal in the area. He was one of
the corporate members of the People for Montana, which raised hundreds of
thousands of dollars for independent expenditures in the 2000 governor’s
campaign.

“The lap dog not only barks, she bites,” McRae said.

McRae was referring to Martz’s comment after the election that if her support
for businesses was seen as her being a lapdog of industry, so be it.

Geri Small, president of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, said she was concerned
about Martz’s request to Secretary of the Interior Gayle Norton for the
“immediate transfer” of the federal coal tracts.

“The Northern Cheyenne Tribe is the largest single population in the vicinity
of Otter Creek and the nearest local government,” Small said. “To the best
of my knowledge, the tribe has never been consulted by the state or the
federal government with respect to the transfer or the governor’s plan to
promote mining in Otter Creek.”

Small, who said her comments were personal opinion because the Tribal Council
had not had adequate time to review the matter, said the tribe’s status as a
sovereign nation mandates that it be provided with adequate notice and
opportunity for input on the transfer.

“I share Gov. Martz’s desire to simulate the stagnant economy in
southeastern Montana,” Small said. “However, the trend regarding coal mining
surrounding our reservation is that the tribe bears the burden of impacts
without realizing any real benefits. I want to insure that this trend does
not continue.”

The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation’s eastern border is the Tongue
River. The Otter Creek tracts are directly east.

The federal Otter Creek coal was to be Montana’s payment in the deal that
pre-empted the construction of the New World/Crown Butte gold mine outside
Yellowstone Park. Although the 1998 Interior Appropriations Act outlined the
transfer of the coal tracts, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt refused
repeated requests by Gov. Marc Racicot that the Otter Creek tracts be turned
over. Instead, Babbitt offered $10 million in federal mineral rights
elsewhere.

In a final letter to Racicot, dated Dec. 22, Babbitt said giving the Otter
Creek tracts to Montana “would open up a rural area to industrial development
and holds the potential for environmental disruption and accompanying
controversy.”

Martz in her Feb. 1 letter to Norton said the Otter Creek tracts contain
significant reserves of super compliant coal in excess of 533 million tons.

“Considering the energy shortage that not only the West is experiencing, but
also the eastern part of the United States, I believe it is in the best
interest of the United States and the state of Montana to immediately
transfer federal ownership,” the governor said.

Copyright © 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.


19 Date: 2001-02-08 17:44:39
Advocate Investigator (no email / no homepage) wrote:

Thursday, February 8, 2001

Indian agencies share $8 million in grants
Compiled from our staff and wire services
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=020801&ID=s918607

The U.S. Justice Department will distribute nearly $8 million in grants to 38
American Indian communities to help curb youth violence and drug abuse.

Eleven tribal governments and agencies in Idaho, Washington, Montana and
Oregon will receive portions of the grant.

The Healing Lodge of the Seven Nations in Spokane will receive $162,317
annually for the next three years. The Healing lodge is a juvenile treatment
center with 30 beds that serves primarily Native Americans. The center is
owned and operated by regional tribes: the Coeur d'Alene, Spokane, Kalispel,
Colville, Kootenai of Idaho, Umatilla and Nez Perce.

The Nez Perce tribe will get $100,000 to establish a restitution program for
youth offenders that incorporates community work at powwows and basketball
tournaments, as well as hunting, fishing and root digging.

The Kalispel Tribe will receive $73,352 to provide case management, drug and
alcohol education and juvenile counseling.



Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.

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