Acting Secretary of the Interior Ralph A. Tudor today announced that investigation of the 10-year lease of 860.3 acres on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation by Arthur R. Hubbard, Pocatello, Idaho, reveals no grounds for cancellation.
The investigation was launched several months ago following a complaint by the chairman of the Fort Hall Business Council that the lease, originally negotiated in the spring of 1951, is not in the best interests of the Indians. Under terms of the lease Hubbard is obligated to pay the Indian owners 15 cents per acre for range land and one dollar per acre for cultivated land annually and to make improvements in a total amount of $41,820 for the term of the lease. He has been in continuous occupancy of the land since 1951 and has drilled and cased a well, installed a pump and motor, levelled the land, erected border fencing, and installed irrigation structures. The total estimated cost of these improvements is $14,365.
The major ground for complaint was that higher rentals than those specified in the Hubbard lease were Offered for the land by H. H. Zimmerli, also of Pocatello, in the spring of 1953. On this point the investigator's report indicated that the Zimmerli bid was made after Hubbard had been in occupancy for nearly two years, had made Over $14,000 worth of improvement, and had demonstrated the feasibility of irrigation farming on the land. In view of these facts, the 1953 offer cannot be fairly compared with the original Hubbard bid.
The investigation also revealed that the present terms of the lease are the same as those approved in 1951 by the Indian Bureau's superintendent at Fort Hall and Area Office at Portland with one exception. This exception involved the elimination of Hubbard's option to renew and was required by law
