Agreement has been reached between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the commissioners of Klamath County, Oregon, covering future maintenance and improvement work on the 764-mile road system of the Klamath Indian Reservation, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay announced today.
The agreement provides that when Federal responsibilities and services to Klamath Indians are terminated by Secretarial proclamation on or before August 13, 1958, under the so-called "Klamath Termination Act" passed last August, the County will take over full responsibility for maintaining reservation roads and integrating them into the County system.
Meanwhile the Bureau agrees to make specified improvements on 79 miles of the reservation roads at an estimated cost of $916,000.
The agreement is typical, Secretary McKay said, of arrangements which the Bureau of Indian Affairs is making not only at Klamath Agency but in other tribal areas affected by termination laws. The purpose of these arrangements is to make sure that the Indians involved are provided with the usual range of State and County services after termination of Federal responsibilities in the particular area.
