OPA

A $39,548 contract for construction of 14 earth-filled flood control structures in the Baboquivari district of the Papago Indian Reservation in Arizona has been awarded to M. A. Dunlap of Phoenix, the Department of the Interior announced today.

When completed, the structures will minimize flood damage to Indian homes, roads and lands on the reservation. They will also provide water for livestock and wildlife.

The project will involve the movement of 300,000 cubic yards of earth fill and placement of 1,370 feet of corrugated metal pipe in 12-inch, 18-inch, and 24-inch diameters. The structures will vary in length from 300 to 1,250 feet and in fill heights up to 40 feet.

Seven other bids besides Dunlap's were received. They ranged from $42,685 , to $66,186.50.

The President today has declared the Zuni Indian Reservation in New Mexico to be an acute distress area because of drought conditions last summer and unusually severe weather conditions this winter and in making this declaration he is putting into effect the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1949, as amended by section 301 of the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, to make emergency livestock feed available to the members of the reservation. The Zuni tribal council does not have the funds to provide the necessary emergency feed to the 4,300 cattle that are on the reservation so the President, taking advantage of the law, or putting the law into effect, is making available from the Commodity Credit Corporation six hundred fifty thousand pounds of feed for livestock which it is estimated will take care of that livestock until April 15 when the range feed should become available. This feed will be furnished free of cost at the railroad siding on the reservation to the members of the Zuni Tribal Council They have had very heavy snows this winter and as of yesterday it is still snowing very heavily on the reservation. It is located at an elevation of about 65 hundred feet (They went on to talk about what kind of feed it was)

(NOTE: This is from transcript of pic statement by Hagerty - not duplicated)

Award of contracts totaling about $217,000 for remodeling kitchens and dining facilities at Indian schools at Pierre and Flandreau, South Dakota, and Wahpeton, North Dakota, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

E. J. Pfeiffer Construction Company of Aberdeen, South Dakota, was awarded the job at Pierre on its bid of $63,798. The successful bidder on the work at Flandreau was H. L. Grohne Company, Decatur, Illinois, with a bid of $89,000. The $63,880 contract at Wahpeton was awarded to Comstock Construction Company, Wahpeton, North Dakota.

The work includes remodeling and redecorating of kitchen and dining facilities, installation of new kitchen equipment, and other work. The facilities are to be completed and ready for use prior to the beginning of the 1958 school term.

The schools are operated by the Indian Bureau. The one at Pierre is an elementary boarding school with an enrollment of 348 students. The vocational high school at Flandreau has an enrollment of 545 in grades 9 through 12. Approximately 365 pupils are enrolled in the elementary boarding school at Wahpeton.

Award of a $162,934.45 contract for the improvement of about six miles of road on the Navajo Indian Reservation at Ganado, Ariz., was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project will provide the last link of bituminous surfacing on the eastern half of Navajo Route 3 which runs across the big reservation connecting U. S. Highway 666 on the east with U. S. Highway 89 on the west. It will also connect with a recently completed concrete bridge across Ganado Wash.

The work involves regrading of roadways to a standard comparable with Navajo Route 3 in general and 5.959 miles of base course and bituminous surfacing.

The successful bidder was Flagstaff Paving and Equipment Company, Flagstaff, Ariz. Thirteen other bids were received ranging from $167,227.18 to $256,682.30.

Appointment of Dinsmore Taylor, an Olympia, Wash., attorney and former member of the Washington Tax Commission, as a management specialist to administer the program for termination of Federal trusteeship over the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton.

Mr. Taylor joins Thomas B. Watters of Klamath Falls, Oreg., who has been serving as Klamath management specialist since January 1955. The two other Oregonians named as management specialists at that time, William L. Phillips of Salem and Eugene Favell of Lakeview, have since resigned.

Born at Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1903, Mr. Taylor grew up in the State of Washington and attended both Washington State College and the University of Washington. After receiving a law degree from the latter institution in 1926, he served for 17 years as a member of the legal staff of the Puget Sound Title Insurance Company of Seattle.

In 1943 he was appointed manager of the Seattle District Office of the Washington Tax Commission and seven years later was named by Governor Arthur B. Langlie as a member of the three-man Commission. He served in this capacity until the expiration of his term in January 1957, and then was retained for another six months as an administrative consultant to the Commission.

As required by the Klamath Termination Act of 1954, Mr. Taylor's appointment was discussed with the Klamath tribal members in general meeting on the reservation March 22.

Under Secretary of the Interior Hatfield Chilson today announced that he has issued a notice to Colorado River Enterprises, Inc., successful bidder last August on an Indian reservation development lease in western Arizona, that the corporation has until May 7 to show cause why the lease should not be canceled.

The action was prompted by the corporation's failure to post a $5,000,000 performance bond as required by the terms of the lease contract.

The lease, covering some 67,000 acres on the Colorado River Indian Reservation in western Arizona, near Parker, was signed last August 13 under authority of the Colorado River Leasing Act of 1955 and provides for the development and irrigation of the Indian lands.

At the time of signing Stanford W. Barton, president of the corporation, gave the Department a check for $40,000 covering one year's advance rental on the lands. This check was not honored by the bank on which it was drawn. On September 26, however, Barton furnished the Department with cashiers’ checks in the required amount of $40,000.

The Department of the Interior announced today that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is inviting proposals by private capital for development of a full section of Indian land in the heart of Palm Springs, California.

Proposals must conform generally with an over-all plan prepared by a private firm hired by the Indian Tribe. The plan envisions an integrated recreational, business and resort development on a site with high land value. The development is expected to enhance the community as well as increase the Indians' income. Any final decision on the land use must be subject to approval by the Indians who own the property.

The plan provides for a golf course, luxury hotels, residential clubs, a 41-acre shopping center and a community recreation-convention center.

The land to be developed--Section 14, Township 4 South, Range 4 East, San Bernardino meridian--is held in trust by the United States for members of the Agua Caliente Band of Palm Springs Indians. One area of eight acres, including the mineral hot springs, was recently leased for construction of a hotel and bathhouse in conformity with the over-all plan.

Development of the area, Indian Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons explained, has been held back because leasing of such Indian lands was formerly limited by law to a period of five years, Under present legislation leasing of the area will be possible for terms up to 50 years.

The Department will receive proposals until June 30. Special stress is being placed on development of the whole section as an integrated enterprise and on the presentation of a satisfactory timetable covering the various phases of development.

Interested parties should communicate with Mr. C. Z. German, Director of the Palm Springs Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Palm Springs, California, or with Mr. Leonard M. Hill, Area Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Sacramento, California.

All proposals must be accompanied by evidence of financial responsibility commensurate with the magnitude of the project.

A $374,915.15 contract for construction of approximately 10 miles of highway on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona has been awarded to Richey Construction Company of St. Johns, Arizona, the Department of the Interior announced today.

The contract involves 1.593 miles from Chinle Junction to Chinle with a 291- foot, 9-span bridge across Nazlini Wash and 8.384 miles from Chinle Junction south toward Ganado with a 33-foot precast concrete beam bridge.

This section of road is a part of Navajo Route 8, which leads into a vast central portion of the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, an area of more than 2,500 square miles with no improved roads. The road is to be constructed with a bituminous stabilized base and bituminous seal and wearing surface. Work on the highway is scheduled to start May 1 and to be completed by December 1.

Thirteen other bids were received ranging from $393,666,43 to $596,997.60.

A proposed new set of Federal regulations under which the commercial rights of the Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts of Alaska may be exercised, if they choose to utilize such rights, as announced today by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton.

The proposal is being forwarded to the Federal Register for publication in the near future. Comments are invited from interested parties for a period of 30 days after the date of publication.

The department’s sale purpose in proposing the regulations, Secretary Seaton emphasized, is to permit the Alaska natives to use these fishing rights which were preserved for the natives by Section 4 of the Alaska Statehood Let, if they choose to do so.

Secretary Seaton pointed out that when the Alaska Statehood Act was being considered by the Congress, the Department of Justice informed the Congress that the inclusion of a reference to “fishing rights” could well result in Braising an implication that there is a ‘right or title’ to fishing rights in the natives of Alaska despite prior court holdings to the contrary.

“The Supreme Court,” the Secretary stated, “has already enjoined the 3tate of Alaska from interfering with native fish traps until it is determined whether these traps involve native fishing rights protected by the Statehood Act.

“The best legal advice I have been able to obtain from the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior,” of the Secretary said, has been to the effect that these fish traps are ‘fishing rights’ protected by the Statehood Act. Under the circumstances, I have no alternative but to permit these natives to operate these traps if they choose to do so.

"Congress created these rights and we cannot, by arbitrary or capricious action, abolish them. If the legal conclusions of lawyers in the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior are correct--as reflected in the position taken in the Supreme Court--them only Congress could abolish the right created by the Congress for these natives to operate fish traps if they so chose. I am further advised that such action by the Congress might also raise questions of just compensation.

"As recently as 1952, 334 fish traps were operated in Alaska waters under regulations issued by Secretary Oscar L. Chapman. The Eisenhower Administration has complied with the wishes of the Alaskan electorate and eliminated all fish traps but these native traps, which I am advised I cannot eliminate," the Secretary stated

“Furthermore," Secretary Seaton said. “I would not eliminate the rights of any native by administrative action without giving him his day in court. These native people have taken their cause to the highest court in our land and I am not going to act so as to deny them the very rights they seek to protect.

“The major difference between the existing State regulations and the proposed new Federal rules relates to the use of commercial fish traps by the native people. No provision for the use of such traps is made by the State regulations. The Federal proposal limits the native people to the "traps used in the 1959 season.

The regulations also describe the location of 21 trap sites of the Angoon community Association, the organized village of Kake and the Metlakatla Indian Community, which have been used at various times in the past by the three native communities.

The proposed regulation provides that during the 1960 fishing season and until otherwise authorized the villages may operate only 11 traps, the same number as were authorized in 1959 in accordance with the Department’s position that the intent of the Alaska Statehood legislation was to retain in “status quo” the rights of the natives.

Prior to the 1959 fishing season the native communities brought legal action to enjoin the state of Alaska from interfering with the exercise of the fishing rights which were preserved for them by the Statehood Act. A temporary injunction was granted by the United states Supreme Court and will remain in effect until the Court issues a final decision in the case.

Under protection of the temporary injunction the native villages operated 11 fish traps during the 1959 season--four at Metlakatla, four at Kake, and three at Angoon.

The sole purpose of the proposed regulations is to spell out certain fishing rights which were secured to the Alaska natives under Federal law. In this connection, Secretary Seaton explained, any fishing activities by the natives in violation of both the Federal and the State regulations would be subject to penalties imposed by state law; however, encroachment of the native’s rights may result in the utilization of penalties provided by Federal law.

Award of a $51,000 contract for water catchment-storage units on the Hualapai Indian Reservation in northern Arizona was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract covers construction of six steel stock water tanks with a capacity of 50,000 gallons each, and six catchment areas lined with asphalt mats.

The storage units will make it possible for the Hualapai tribal members to use their range resources more effectively through better distribution of livestock and will also permit an increase in the number of cattle. The project is part of a long-term range water development program for the Hualapai Reservation.

M. J. B. Construction Company of Yuma, Arizona, was awarded the contract. Six higher bids ranging from $53,580 to $72,756 were received