OPA

The Navajo Indian Irrigation Project and the initial stage of the San Juan-Chama Reclamation Project, authorized in a bill passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President, will provide economic assistance to the Navajo Indians and will enable New Mexico to put to use a major portion of the water of the Upper Colorado River system to which it is entitled under two interstate compacts.

The authorizing legislation (S.107) provides that the two projects will be constructed, operated and maintained as participating projects of the five-State Colorado River Storage Project, now under construction in the Mountain West.

"I am extremely pleased that the bureaus of the Department of the Interior can now get moving on the construction of these very worthwhile resource development projects," said Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall. "Both projects provide opportunity for a resource program investment today that will return manifold dividends in the future years. The developments not only fit the pattern for wise and beneficial development of natural resources, as laid down by President Kennedy in his conservation messages to the Congress, but they also will provide economic opportunity for depressed areas,"

Secretary Udall, a native of the neighboring State of Arizona, indicated that he was especially pleased at the prospects of building facilities to deliver a dependable supply of irrigation water to the Navajo tribal lands in New Mexico,

"For many years the Federal Government has been trying to cope with the problem of bettering the economic conditions of the rapidly-increasing Navajo population, now numbering about 85,000," he said. “The Navajo Indian Irrigation Project contemplates the construction of distribution facilities to deliver water to approximately 110,000 acres of land within and adjacent to the Navajo Indian Reservation. The lands involved are located in two large areas on an elevated plain south of the San Juan River in San Juan County. An average of 508,000 acre-feet of water would be diverted annually from the San Juan River at the Navajo Dam and Reservoir, now nearing completion by the Bureau of Reclamation at a site on the San Juan River and would be conveyed some 150 miles across reservation lands.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs estimated that some 14 years will be required to complete planning on the $135 million project and to complete the canals and laterals, tunnels, siphons, and pumping plants required. Delivery of water to the first of the project lands, however, could be accomplished within five years. The project is planned to supply irrigation water but is adaptable to serve municipal and industrial water users if the need arises in the future.

The initial stage development of the Bureau of Reclamation's San Juan-Chama Project contemplates an average annual diversion of about 110,000 acre-feet from the upper tributaries of the San Juan River for utilization in the Rio Grande Basin in New Mexico. The $86 million project would provide needed municipal and industrial water for the city of Albuquerque and also would yield a full and supplemental irrigation water supply for about 120,000 acres of farming land in the Rio Grande Basin in New Mexico.

Recreation and the conservation and development of fish and wildlife resources which would be built over a period of about 5 years also would be purposes of the San Juan-Chama Project.

James F. Canan, career employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, will take over as new area director for the Bureau at Billings, Montana, June 24, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Canan has been assistant area director in charge of resources at Gallup, New Mexico, since last December. At Billings he succeeds Percy E. Melis who retired last March.

A native of Altoona, Pa., and graduate of Haverford College, Canan joined the Department of the Interior in 1949 as a confidential assistant in the office of the Assistant Secretary for Water and Power. In 1950, he transferred to the Washington office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and served there for four years as a business economist. In 1954, he moved to the area office at Gallup as an administrative assistant and two years later was appointed superintendent of the Consolidated Ute Agency, Ignacio, Colo. After four years in this post, he moved back to the Gallup office as assistant area director six months ago.

In addition to acquiring a bachelor's degree at Haverford, Canan also attended Swarthmore College and Villanova College under the Navy V-12 program during World War II. He is married and has three children. At Billings he will have charge of all Indian Bureau operations in Montana and Wyoming.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall and Alaska's Governor William A. Egan today Jointly announced plans for a three-man task force to visit native villages in Alaska and study Indian Bureau operations there during June.

Named as chairman of the group was W. W. Keeler, Bartlesville, Okla., oil company executive and Principal Chief of the Cherokee tribal organization, who headed a similar task force that studied Bureau of Indian Affairs operations in other States during the spring of 1961. The other members are Hugh J. Wade, Secretary of State for Alaska, and James E. Officer, Associate Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who served with Chairman Keeler on the earlier task force. Robert L. Bennett, the Bureau's Area Director at Juneau, and Burke Riley, chairman of the Interior Department's Alaska Field Committee, will accompany the task force members on their Alaskan travels.

The Alaska study, Secretary Udall explained, is in a sense a continuation of the earlier task force's examination of Bureau policies and operations. It will be concerned with such matters as native land rights, problems of native fisheries in the southeastern part of the State, educational needs of the natives, and many other related topics.

The itinerary of the task force has not yet been determined in full detail. Present plans, however, call for a series of meetings with the native people starting at Anchorage on June 11. Subsequent meetings are scheduled to be held over a period of three weeks at Bethel, Unalakleet, Nome, Kotzebue, Point Hope, Barrow, Fort Yukon, Fairbanks, Juneau and Ketchikan.

Appointment of Lloyd New Kiva, Cherokee Indian artist and owner-manager of an Indian arts and crafts shop at Scottsdale, Ariz., as a member of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

A native of Fairland, Okla., Kiva was named to fill out the unexpired term of Willard W. Beatty, who died September 29 shortly after being elected chairman of the Board. The term expires July 6, 1964.

The new Board member has been in the Indian arts and crafts field for the past 22 years. During this period, he taught arts and crafts at the Phoenix Indian School for four years and served as superintendent of the Indian exhibit at the Arizona State Fair each year from 1939 to 1946.

He has owned and operated his shop at Scottsdale since 1945. After finishing high school, he studied at the Chicago Arts Institute on a Bureau of Indian Affairs scholarship and later attended the University of Chicago, the University of New Mexico, and Oklahoma A &M College.

Dr. Frederick J. Dockstader, also of Scottsdale and a member of the Board since September 20, 1955, was elected Chairman succeeding Dr. Beatty on October 5.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today that Paul Jones, Tribal Chairman of the Navajo Indians, has agreed to enter into negotiation looking toward the exchange of nearly 300,000 acres of tribal land surrounding Rainbow Bridge National Monument in Utah for public domain lands.

Secretary Udall said: “The acreage lying south and west of Navajo Mountain comprises one of the magnificent scenic areas outside the National Park System." Rainbow Bridge has long been the focal point of interest in this fantastically eroded red sandstone country.

Secretary Udall said that the wilderness quality of the tribal area has over the years been protected by the extremely rugged topography which makes it inaccessible to all but the hardiest visitor. The new park, Secretary Udall pointed out, could become one of the finest wilderness parks in the national system. Aside from a 14-mile horse trail to the Bridge, little has changed since 1910 in this area, Secretary Udall said.

Rainbow Bridge National Monument, established on May 30, 1910, at present comprises 160 acres centering on the largest of the world's known natural bridges--a symmetrical arch of salmon pink sandstone, curving in the form of a rainbow 309 feet above the bottom of the gorge.

Visitors travelling to the Pacific Northwest will find many reasons for lingering beyond their visit to the Seattle World Fair in a special informational pamphlet being readied by the Department of the Interior.

The booklet details points of interest such as national parks and monuments, dams and recreational areas, fish hatcheries, public land camp sites, and Indian reservations administered by the Department. It indicates the availability of hotels, camping and picnicking areas, and point of entry communities offering accommodations. Special regulations regarding fishing, fires, mountain climbing, and pets are listed.

The publication will soon be available from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C., for 20 cents.

Continued sale of the booklet is planned for post-fair years, and similar booklets on other sections of the Nation are planned.

"Many potential visitors to the Pacific Northwest who have heard of Mount Rainier or Yellowstone park are not acquainted with the many other outstanding attractions available en route," Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall said. "We are hopeful that as part of the Kennedy Administration's program for encouraging outdoor recreation many more Americans will become acquainted with their unique heritage."

Secretary Udall said a listing of attractions, all easily available from main highways, include Department of the Interior Recreation areas at Grand Coulee Dam, where 32 public camping grounds and nearby motels and hotels provide visitors with access to tours of the massive dam as well as camping, swimming, boating trips up the 151-mile long Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake, and viewing the illuminated dam at night. A listing of similar attractions at Hungry Horse Dam in Montana is included.

Lesser-known attractions range from details of the Oregon Caves National Monument with its striking stalagmites and miniature waterfalls, the strikingly different Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho, the restored frontier fort at Fort Simcoe, Washington, various rodeos, dances and other events at Indian reservations, and historic sites such as the Old Hudson Bay Company headquarters at Fort Vancouver National Monument in Washington and the Custer Battlefield National Monument in Montana.

The complete listing includes details on:

NATIONAL PARKS: Mount Rainier and Olympic (Wash.); Crater Lake (Ore.); Yellowstone (Ida., Mont., Wyo.); Grand Teton (Wyo.); and Glacier (Mont.).

NATIONAL MONUMENTS AND HISTORIC SITES: Oregon Caves, Fort CIatsop, and McLoughlin House (Ore.); Whitman and Fort Vancouver (Wash.); Big Hole and Custer (Mont.); and Craters of the Moon (Ida.).

RESERVOIR RECREATIONAL AREAS: Grand Coulee (Wash.) and Hungry Horse (Mont.).

INDIAN RESERVATIONS: Nez Perce (Ida.); Umatilla and Warm Springs (Ore.); Colville, Lummi, Spokane, Swinomish, Quinault, Tulalip and Yakima (Wash.); Wind River (Wyo.); and Blackfeet, Fort Belknap, Fort Peck, Flathead, Crow, Rocky Boy's and Northern Cheyenne (Mont.).

FISH HATCHERIES (Open to visitors): Hagerman (Ida.); Estacada (Ore.); and Longview, Carson, Entiat, Leavenworth, Cook, Quilcene, Underwood, Winthrop, and Yakima (Wash.)

Appointment of Robert L. Bennett, a veteran of nearly 25 years' service with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as Area Director for the Bureau at Juneau, Alaska, was reported today by the Department of the Interior.

An Oneida Indian and native of Wisconsin, Bennett has been serving as Assistant Area Director at the Bureau's area office at Aberdeen, South Dakota, since 1958. At Juneau he succeeds James E. Hawkins who has been Area Director there for the past five years and who will be given another assignment in the Bureau.

Bennett first came with the Bureau in 1933 and has served at the Unitah and Ouray, Navajo, and Consolidated Ute Agencies, in the Washington office, and at Aberdeen.

Mr. Bennett is a 1931 graduate of Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas, and holds a law degree from Southeastern University, Washington, D. C. He was inducted into the Marine Corps in 1945 and later served three years with the Veterans' Administration.

The Alaska native population served by the Bureau of Indian Affairs comprises Eskimos, Aleuts, and Indians, who have long standing and unresolved problems of land ownership and use, health, education, and economic opportunity.

All title source documents and records pertaining to trust or restricted lands on 21 Indian reservations have now been transferred from Washington, D. C. , to area offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Aberdeen, S. Dak.; Billings, Mont. j Gallup, N. Mex.; and Portland, Oreg., the Department of the Interior announced today.

The transfer, Commissioner Philleo Nash emphasized, has involved only the land records formerly maintained in Washington and not those kept at the Bureau's agency offices.

Transferred to the Aberdeen Area Office were the records for the Omaha, Ponca, Santee and Winnebago Reservations in Nebraska; the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Reservations in South Dakota; and the Sisseton Reservation in North and South Dakota.

Records which went to the Billings Office were for the Blackfeet, Fort Belknap, Fort Peck and Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana and the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.

The Gallup Area Office received records for the Alamo, Canoncito and Ramah Navajo communities and the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico and for the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

The transfer to Portland involved records for the Colville, Port Madison and Tulalip Reservations in Washington.

The transfers so far accomplished, Commissioner Nash explained, represent only the first step in a process which will eventually involve all Indian land records now maintained in Washington

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall reported. today that an agreement has been reached between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Harry Winston, Inc." of New York City, for the establishment early next year of a diamond processing plant at Chandler, Arizona, which will provide new job opportunities for the State's Indian population.

The Winston corporation, one of the world's leading diamond mining and processing firms and donor of the internationally famous Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution, will operate the plant in a building to be constructed by the Chandler Development Corporation. The Bureau of Indian Affairs will provide funds for on-the-job training of Indian workers.

Plans call for a work force of at least 200. Indians are expected to comprise the major part of the production force. Those from the nearby Gila River and Salt River Reservations should especially benefit.

At first the operation at Chandler will be confined to intermediate processing and polishing of precious stones. As the workers gain proficiency, however, it is expected that the Chandler plant will take on the more difficult operations of final processing of precious stones and the processing of commercial diamonds.

The plant is to begin training a small group of workers and add a similar group each week until the work force is built up. The plant is expected to begin operations about April 1, 1962. A public hearing on zoning of the tract where the plant will be located is scheduled to be held in Chandler on December 11.

Establishment of the plant at Chandler, Secretary Udall said, is the result of negotiations carried on by the industrial development staff of the Bureau of Indian Affairs with the Winston firm over an extended period. These negotiations were conducted under the Bureau's program to encourage the establishment of industries on or near reservations as a means of widening job opportunities for Indians.

A special exhibit, "Indian Handicraft, the True and the False," has been arranged in the Department of the Interior Museum at Washington, D. C., and will be displayed for two months.

Material for the exhibit was furnished by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior and consists of Indian handicraft of all types, from jewelry to Indian dolls.

With the increasing demand for Indian handicraft, the manufacture and sale of imitations has become a huge industry, dwarfing the volume of sale of the genuine product. Products from foreign countries also have entered the market. Confusion has mounted in the minds of the public interested in Indian products and difficulty is frequently experienced in detecting the true from the false.

The exhibit will contain both the genuine and the imitation products and will help guide potential buyers. Literature to aid in differentiating between the two will be available during the display