OPA

Further exploration of coal resources in the lands of the Navajo Indian Reservation that may lead to a development expenditure of more than $1,000,000 and employment of as many as 200 Indians is now definitely in prospect, the Department of the Interior announced today.

The exploration will be done by the El Paso Natural Gas Company under a preferential prospecting permit covering 85,760 acres on the New Mexico portion of the Navajo Reservation. The area lies immediately south of a 25,000-acre area which bas been under a coal mining lease held by the Utah Construction Company since the fall of 1957.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons ;aid that under terms of the new permit, El Paso will have a maximum of 18 months in which to select acreage for leasing that will provide a 60-year coal reserve. The leased area will be limited to 34,560 acres unless the Company can demonstrate its need for additional acreage to supply the 60-year reserve.

El Paso has indicated that it contemplates processing the coal for two major purposes. One will be production of gas to be mixed with natural gas carried in the Company's pipelines which already cross the area. The other will be production of liquid hydrocarbon components of motor fuels. Additional expected by-products include char, tar and chemicals.

The Company has stated that if sufficient reserves are discovered and it exercises its option to lease, it will spend "not less than $1,000,000” in development of the coal and construction of a pilot plant. Employment will be furnished, the Company estimated, to 50 Navajos during the initial mining and pilot plant period and this employment could be expected to increase to 200 Navajos under full- scale mining and processing operations.

If the lease is consummated after the prospecting period, it will run for 10 years and as long thereafter as the coal is produced in paying quantities.

Royalties for the tribe will be at the rate of 15 cents a ton for coal used as fuel or processed into gas or liquid motor fuel components and at the rate of 10 percent of the f.o.b. sales price on other products or by-products. The total royalty for these products, however, is not to exceed 30 cents per ton of the coal mined.

Rental payments of $1 per acre, which are to be made in advance each year under the lease, are to be credited against the royalty payments accruing in that particular year.

While the prospecting permit and the lease have not yet been put into effect, Mr. Emmons said that the two documents have been agreed upon by the tribe and the Company and have been found satisfactory by the Department. The Area Director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Gallup, New Mexico, W. Wade Head, has been authorized to give formal approval to the prospecting permit on behalf of the Department and is expected to do so in the next few days.

Twenty-nine proposals to lease lands on the Dania Indian Reservation in south Florida for commercial or industrial development have been received by the Seminole tribal organization since the availability of the lands for leasing was publicly announced last August, the Department of the Interior reported today.

The most recent offer, which is now being considered by the tribal organization, is for unit leasing of the entire available area comprising about 318 acres. Under this proposal the Tribe would receive a guaranteed minimum annual rental of $150,000 or 12 percent of the gross receipts from sub rentals, whichever is greater. The type of development contemplated includes the construction of housing facilities of a permanent nature together with a golf course, a motel, and other related facilities.

All of the other 28 proposals received earlier were for leasing of smaller parcels.

The acreage being offered is located in a rapidly growing section of Florida immediately west of Dania, and is bisected by four-lane State Highway No.7 with about a mile and a quarter of frontage directly on the highway. It includes all lands of the 475-acre Dania Reservation apart from acreage which has been reserved for Indian home sites and for ceremonial and administrative purposes.

Since the lands are held in trust by the Federal Government for the Indians, they can be leased only with the approval of the Department of the Interior. Under existing law, leases can be made for 25 years with a possibility of a 25-year renewal.

The Department feels sure that the tribal organization would welcome additional leasing proposals comparable to the one most recently received. Interested parties should write to the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Inc., care of Superintendent Virgil Harrington, Box 157, Dania, Florida.

Because of fire safety hazards involved in student dormitories, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is taking action immediately to close its 500-pupil school at Fort Defiance, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Arrangements will be made so that all of the presently enrolled students can finish the current term either by transferring to other reservation schools immediately, or by taking summer school instruction. Plans are also being made to place all of them in other school facilities for the new term which starts next fall.

The decision to close the Fort Defiance school was made by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons after consideration of alternatives, and consultation with Navajo Tribal Chairman Paul Jones. Mr. Jones, now in Washington on tribal business, concurred in the decision.

The students at Fort Defiance include both boys and girls enrolled in grades from the beginners through the fourth. Practically all are Navajo Indian children.

The dormitories which have been found unsafe for further occupancy are approximately 50 years old.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it has taken joint action with the Department of Agriculture in designating 11 units of the Klamath Indian Forest in Oregon to be offered for sale over & period of about 16 months starting sometime after April 1.

The two Departments have also agreed upon specifications and minimum require9nts for sustained-yield management of the units which must be followed by purchasers under provisions of the Klamath Termination Act of 1954, as amended.

The units selected total over 617,000 acres and range in size from about 35,000 acres to more than 91,000. In volume of timber the range is from about 69 million board feet to over 548 million board feet.

The law also provides that the units may not be sold at less than their realization value as established in a recent review of an appraisal originally made as of February 28, 1957. Total realization value of the 11 units to be offered is $70,352,873 and the range is from $1,636,182 to $13,345,495.

The first group of four units will be advertised for sale sometime after April 1, three other units will be advertised around July 1, and the remaining four units around November 1. Full details about the units being offered and the requirements for sustained-yield management will be set forth in the advertisements.

Proceeds of the sales will be used to compensate persons who have elected to withdraw from the Klamath Tribe in accordance with the Termination Act.

If any of the units are not sold by April 1, 1961, they will be purchased by the Government and added to the national forest system.

Under the law any enrolled member of the Klamath Tribe is given the right to purchase, for his own account but not as an agent for others, any of the offered units for not less than the highest offer received by competitive bid.

Award of a $176,168 contract to rehabilitate approximately 1,200 acres of land on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in northern Nevada, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract calls for re-leveling of the land and the construction of canals, laterals and water control structures. The work to be done is part of an over-all program to develop available resources on the Duck Valley Reservation for use by Indian families.

The improvements will stabilize the livestock program in this isolated community, where it is necessary to feed the cattle hay approximately five months of the year because of the extreme winters. Heretofore the land has been under uncontrolled irrigation without a control system of canals.

The successful bidder was Milco Construction Company of Delta, Utah. Thirteen higher bids ranging from $188,980.66 to $229,051.95 were received.

Completion of the final membership roll of the Peoria Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, following the disposition of all appeals, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The preliminary membership roll, published in the Federal Register May 9, 1957, included 624 individuals. The net result of additions and subtractions made as a consequence of appeals to the Secretary of the Interior is a final roll of 640.

Under a 1956 congressional law, Federal trusteeship of the Peoria property is to be ended by next August 2.

The Department of the Interior favors enactment of legislation initiated by the Choctaw Indian Tribe of Oklahoma which provides for disposition of the Tribe’s lands and funds and for eventual termination of its special relations with the Federal Government, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.

In reporting to Congress on H. R. 2722, Mr. Ernst emphasized that the bill was introduced in Congress at the request of tribal officials.

In the background of the present bill, Mr. Ernst said, is a 1906 law which was intended to provide for disposition of all lands of the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma either by allotment to individual members or by sale, for the division of all tribal funds among the members, and for dissolution of the tribal governments. Enactment of H. R. 2722, he added, will make it possible to complete this program for the Choctaw Tribe, which is one of the Five Civilized Tribes.

The bill applies only to tribal assets and will have no effect on the allotted lands of individual Choctaw Indians which will continue to be governed by the provisions of existing law.

Three classes of land will be affected by the bill. One consists of 7,731 acres of unallotted tribal land in which the Choctaw Tribe has a three-fourths interest and the Chickasaw Tribe a one-fourth interest. A second includes 8,610 acres purchased by the Government and held in trust for the Choctaw Tribe under legislation of the 1930‘s. The third category would take in any submarginal lands bought for the use of the Tribe by the Government during the 1930’s.

So far the records of the Department have not disclosed any lands in this third category. However, since a search of the records is still continuing and might eventually turn up something, the Department favored retention of the third category in the bill.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons today strongly urged the Army Corps of Engineers to take action "at the earliest possible date” to eliminate a flood threat to tribally developed pasturelands on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida.

The problem, Mr. Emmons said, is caused by an unfinished Corps of Engineers anal, designated as L28, which pours water out onto an area of extremely flat ground where it meets the natural flow from the northwest across the reservation and piles up in and around 2,850 acres of improved pasture. If a strong southeast wind should occur when the water is flowing out of the canal, the improvements might well be totally destroyed.

In a letter to Major General E. C. Itschner, Chief of Engineers, Commissioner Emmons pointed out that the Seminole Tribe spent $69,982 on the pasture improvement work last year and has budgeted an additional $49,200 for the purpose in 1959.

Mr. Emmons also said it was his understanding the hazard could be eliminated merely by extending the canal a comparatively short distance to the south where the gravity flow of the discharged water would be away from the reservation.

“As trustee for the Indian lands,” Commissioner Emmons wrote, "this Bureau believes that any further prolonged delay in correcting the situation would be inexcusable. We strongly urge that action be taken at the earliest possible date to extend the Canal far enough to the south so that the Indian lands and development works will be fully protected against any further threat of damage or destruction."

Legislation that would facilitate the transfer of surplus Federal Indian school properties to local public school districts, has been recommended to Congress, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Such transfers are now possible under a law enacted in 1953 but are limited to 20 acres in anyone conveyance. Since this limitation has interfered with some contemplated transfers and has seemingly served no useful purpose, the Department is proposing that it be deleted.

Under provisions of the 1953 law, 43 school properties totaling about 450 acres have so far been transferred to local school districts. Eight of these are in Oklahoma, seven each in Minnesota and Montana, five in Kansas, four each in New Mexico and Washington, two each in Arizona and Wisconsin", and one each in Idaho, North Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming.

One of the basic educational aims of the Bureau of Indian Affairs is to provide for the enrollment of Indian children in public schools rather than Federal Indian schools wherever this can be accomplished. The transfers have been made in line with this objective.

Award of three contracts totaling $171,820.40 for road construction work in Indian areas of Oklahoma was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

All three projects involve a stabilized asphalt base and single bituminous surfacing on grade and drainage completed sometime ago. All of the roads run through heavily populated Indian areas and are school-bus and mail-service routes.

A contract of $87,255.80 for 9.363 miles on Ponca-Otoe Line in Noble County and a $41,504.60 contract for 4.456 miles on Spring Creek Road in Caddo County were awarded to W. E. Steelman of Oklahoma City.

The third contract, covering 4.95 miles on Seiling-Canton Road in Blaine County, was awarded to Elliott Brothers, Inc., Oklahoma City, on a bid of $43,060.

Nine higher bids were received on the Ponca-Otoe and Sailing-Canton contracts and ten higher on the Spring Creek project.