Commissioner of Indian Affairs William E. Hallett announced today that a new Bureau of Indian Affairs agency is being established to serve the Laguna Pueblo
The Commissioner has instructed the BIA Albuquerque Area Office to begin taking administrative actions necessary to make the new agency operational. These include renting office space, completing position descriptions, transferring property and other such matters. Laguna and nine other Pueblos have been served by the Southern Pueblos Agency, located in Albuquerque. Commissioner Hallett said that the creation of the new agency "should improve services to the other nine Pueblos, as well as to the Laguna Pueblo."
Laguna has a membership of about 6,000 and a land area of more than 400,000 acres, including the largest open-pit uranium mining operation in the world. The official document authorizing the new agency was signed by Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus on February 21.
