OPA

Over a million acres has been added to the land holdings of Indian tribes throughout the country in the past three years as a result of Congressional enactments and administrative section by the Department of the Interior, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons announced today.

During the same period, he added, 927,926 acres of land owned by individual Indians has been sold by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in response to written requests by the Indian owners, 292,488 acres has been turned over to Indians who applied for fee patents and satisfied the Bureau of their competency to manage their own affairs, and 122,414 acres of mixed tribal and individual Indian land has been taken by the Government for flood control purposes with full compensation to the Indian owners.

“In considering the additions which have been made to the estate of Indian tribes over the past three years," Mr. Emmons pointed out, "it is important to bear in mind that neither the Department of the Interior nor the Bureau of Indian Affairs has any authority to dispose of tribal lands held in trust unless such action is specifically approved in each case by the Congress. In the case of individual Indian lands in trust status, we have disposal authority but it is exercised only when the Indian owners request a sale and such action is considered to be in their best interests. Each individual case of this kind is carefully examined and considered.”

Of the 1,024,349 acres added to tribal holdings in the three-year period, 818,277 acres was restored to ownership of the Colville Tribe of Washington under legislation enacted last year. The restored land was ceded to the Government by the Tribe as a kind of "surplus" many years ago when the reservation was allotted to individual tribal members. Although the original intention was to sell the ceded A land, this was never accomplished and the Tribe subsequently requested the restoration which was consummated by the 1956 legislation, Under this law (F. L. 772) the 818,277 acres is now held in trust by the United States for the tribe on the same basis as other reservation lands.

The second largest addition to tribal holdings was the Navajo Tribe's purchase of the 98,000-acre Brown and Best Ranch near Sanders, Arizona, in 1956. Although this land is held directly by the Tribe in fee simple title, is not in Federal trusteeship and is located apart from the main reservation, it represents a substantial increase in acreage available for use by Navajo tribal members. Since it was paid for by tribal funds in trust status, the action was subject to Secretarial approval.

In addition to the Colville Restoration Act, similar legislation in 1955 and 1956 added 41,216 acres to the Pueblo of Zia and 36,352 to the Pueblo of Jemez, both in New Mexico; 27,086 acres to the Seminole Reservations in Florida; 1,320 acres to the Yavapai Tribe of Arizona; and 600 acres to the Kanosh Band of Utah. Administrative actions by the Department of the Interior during the same period added nearly 400 acres to the estate of the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana, 253 acres to tribal holdings on Montana's Flathead Reservation, and 89,192 acres on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.

Purchases made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in trust for individual Indians during the period accounted for nearly 20,000 additional acres.

As of last June 30, the latest date for which full reports are available, the United States was holding in trust for Indian tribal groups approximately 39,500,000 acres and for individual Indians about 13,300,000 acres.

Leslie p. Towle, assistant area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Aberdeen, S. Dak., has been named new superintendent at Pine Ridge Agency, S. Dak., and John C. Dibbern, an assistant in the resources division of the Bureau's Washington office, has been selected for the similar position at Colorado River Agency, Parker, Ariz., the Department of the Interior announced today.

Mr. Towle, replacing James W. Kauffman, who retires May 31, will take over his new duties June 1. Mr. Dibbern also replaces a retiring superintendent, James M, Stewart, and will take over at Parker on June 2.

A veteran of nearly 24 years with the Indian Bureau, Mr. Towle has been /assistant area director at Aberdeen since 1955 and previously held a similar position for six years in the area office at Portland, Oreg. His earlier career with the Bureau, which started in 1933, included five years as auditor accountant at Billings, Mont.; five as senior administrative assistant and three as assistant director in the roads branch of the Central Office; and three as administrative officer at Portland. He was born at Littleport, Iowa, in 1901 and is a graduate of the University of Iowa.

Mr. Dibbern, born at Los Angeles in 1919, had about a dozen years experience in teaching and in range jobs with the Soil Conservation Service and the United States Forest Service before joining the Indian Bureau as range conservationist at Sells, Ariz., in 1950. After four years in this position, he was appointed land operations officer at Whiteriver, Ariz., and one year later moved to the Bureau's Washington office as program officer. Last August he was designated assistant to the Assistant Commissioner for Resources. He holds a doctor’s degree in plant ecology received from the University of Chicago in 1947.

Mr. Kauffman retires after about 28 years of service width the Bureau, chiefly in Minnesota, and Mr. Stewart after 34 years spent principally in the Southwest. Both are veterans of the First World War.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard and Acting Deputy Commissioner, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Sidney Mills today announced a revised Action Plan for improving personnel management in the Bureau.

The revitalized Personnel Management Action Plan which is now being implemented places renewed emphasis on many continuing needs and adds a number of new items of major import to the effective accomplishment of the Bureau's mission. Highlights include:

--Implementation of the Civil Service Reform Act including the Senior Executive Service, merit pay and performance appraisal based on results;

--Developing and operating a new personnel system for the Bureau's Indian Education function in accordance with Public Law 95-561;

--Designing and operating a comprehensive manpower planning and recruiting system including an expansion of the prototype Indian intake and development program;

--Improving the interpretation and guidance of qualification and classification material including the application of the knowledge-skillability (KSA) approach mandated by the Federal Uniform Guidelines; and

--Various actions in the labor-management relations, affirmative action,

and troubled employee program areas.

The action plan has been developed and will be implemented in close coordination with the Department's Assistant Secretary for Policy, Budget and Administration and representatives of the Office of Personnel Management, who are providing assistance and monitoring to the improvement effort. Other bureaus in Interior have also been given the chance to participate by contributing skilled employees on a temporary project basis.

Under the leadership of Assistant Secretary Gerard, many significant problem areas of management in the BIA are being addressed through a comprehensive Management Improvement Program (MIP) including financial integrity, field organizational structures and relationship, administrative processes, automated information systems, and technical assistance and training.

The improvement needs in the Bureau's own personnel system and operations were the subject of a previous actions plan thrust starting in early 1976, and were reemphasized by subsequent reports of the American Indian Policy Review Commission and of the Department's BIA reorganization task force.

A full-time project manager will assist in the coordination of the multi-action effort and prepare monthly progress reports for Bureau,-Departmental and OPM management.

Secretary of the Interior Fred. A. Seaton called attention today to the publication of a proposed membership roll of the Peoria Indian Tribe of Oklahoma in the Federal Register of May 9, 1957.

The roll was prepared by the tribe under terms of a 1956 congressional law which provides for termination of Federal supervision over the property of the tribe by 1958.

Under the law any person claiming membership in the tribe or an interest in its assets may file with the Secretary of the Interior, Washington, D. C., an appeal contesting the omission of a name from the roll or the inclusion of one on it. Such appeals must be filed within 60 days after the date of the rolls publication in the Federal Register.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Hatfield Chilson today announced Departmental approval of a resolution adopted by the Rosebud Sioux Indian Tribe of South Dakota calling for cancellation of grazing leases and permits granted in the future to nonmembers operating on the reservation if they fail to pay a tax imposed by the tribal organization.

Within the past year, there have been two important court decisions which have a bearing on this matter. In one of these, Iron Crow v. Oglala Sioux Tribe, 231 F. (2d) 89 (8th Cir. 1956), the court decided that a tribe organized under the Indian Reorganization Act has a right to collect taxes from nonmembers doing business on the reservation. In the other, Oglala Sioux v. Barta, D. C., 146 F. Supp. 917, it was determined that such a tribe has capacity to sue in the Federal District Court for the collection of taxes which the tribe has validly imposed on nonmember permittees or lessees of tribal land.

In view of these decisions, said Mr. Chilson, the Department would not be justified in refusing to approve reasonable tax programs of Indian tribes imposed on persons or property within their jurisdiction.

The Department has approved the inclusion of a "cancellation clause” in the new Rosebud permits and leases, he added, in order to provide a simple means of enforcing collection and to avoid burdensome litigation which might otherwise be necessary. Actual collection of the tax, however, will be a tribal responsibility.

Award of a contract for construction of 7.557 miles of roads on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, Gila and Navajo Counties, Ariz., to Bentson Contracting Company of Phoenix was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Bentson’s bid of $185,330.60 was the lowest of thirteen received. The others ranged from $193,784 to $315,590.

This is the first section of the planned 26-mile road from Fort Apache to U. S. 60 which leads to Globe and Phoenix. Its construction will stimulate further development of the reservation for commercial trade as well as recreation.

Upon completion of the entire road from Fort Apache to U. S. 60, it will be turned over to the Arizona Highway Department for maintenance.

The project will involve 40,921 cubic yards of unclassified excavation, 37,600 cubic yards of selected borrow base course, 28,263 tons of crushed gravel base course, 1,294 linear feet of corrugated galvanized sheet metal culvert pipe, and 79,800 linear feet of barbed wire fence.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Hatfield Chilson today authorized the Bureau of Indian Affairs to offer for agricultural development lease as a unit an area of about 65,000 acres of highly fertile irrigable land on the Colorado River Indian Reservation near Parker, Arizona.

The offering is to be made under a 1955 law which authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to lease the land on behalf of the beneficial Indian owners for not more than 25 years. Under this act the lease must be consummated by next August 14.

The area to be offered comprises the undeveloped irrigable lands of the Colorado River Irrigation Project which need to be cleared and leveled and will require completion of the gravity flow irrigation system and drainage system. Specifications for carrying out this work have been drawn up by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and will have to be followed by the lessee in completing the development.

Since no judicial determination has been yet made on the quantity of Colorado River water available for use on the reservation, the proposed uses of water under the lease will be "subject to prior uses of and on the Colorado River Indian Reservation and any limitations of use imposed by operation of law, decrees or orders of Court." The Department provides no assurance of the adequacy of water supply and will assume no liability for inadequacy of water rights.

Water supply for the Arizona portion of the area, comprising the great bulk of the lands offered, will be that of the Colorado River Irrigation Project diverted at Headgate Rock Dam. On the California side, water supply may be pumped from wells or from the river subject to prior uses and statutory or judicial limitations.

The reservation area, Acting Secretary Chilson said, has great potentiality for irrigation agriculture. Its soils respond well to water, fertilizer and good manag8ment practices. With a frost-free period from early March to late November, the lands are capable of producing a wide variety of crops such as alfalfa, cotton, milo, barley, flax, sugar beets, pasture, grapes, melons, and numerous vegetables. Production potential is apparently comparable with that in the Palo Verde and other nearby areas.

Irrigation development on the Colorado River Reservation was first begun in the 1860's and has been carried on intermittently ever since. About 38,000 acres have been developed by the Federal Government leaving an undeveloped irrigable area of approximately 65,000 acres. The Headgate Rock Dam and main canal, which will serve these lands, have already been constructed.

Copies of the prospectus and further information about the leasing offer may be obtained by writing to the Superintendent, Colorado River Agency, Parker, Ariz.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Hatfield Chilson today announced awarding of two contracts totaling $276,803 for road and bridge construction on the Yakima Indian reservation in the State of Washington.

The contracts are as follows:

C &E Construction Company of Yakima, Wash., a contract for $226,995.63 for the construction of a total of 11.059 miles of road; engineer's estimate $242,969.90.

Hans Skov Construction Company of Yakima, $47,807.80 for the construction of four timber pile concrete deck bridges totaling 242 linear feet; engineer's estimate $57,400.80.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons said the construction work is being done to improve existing roads and add new roads used by the Yakima Indians for farm-to-market access, and mail and school bus routes. The roads, when completed, will be turned over to Yakima County for maintenance under an agreement with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Commissioner Emmons said that on the road construction work the Bureau examined eight bids ranging to a high of $294,138.92 and on the bridge construction work the Bureau examined nine bids ranging to a high of $64,044.

The Department of the Interior announced today award of a $430,258 construction contract for a major expansion and remodeling of the Indian Bureau's boarding school plant at Seba Dalkai, Arizona.

The Anchor Construction Company of Roswell, New Mexico was awarded the contract. Six contractors from Arizona and New Mexico submitted higher bids ranging from $457,750 to $498,553.

When completed, the expansion will enable the school to accommodate 128 Navajo pupils, compared to 97 at the present. The project is part of the Bureau's long-range program of providing adequate educational opportunities for school-age Indian children.

To be constructed are a dormitory with kitchen and dining facilities, an addition and some remodeling to an existing school, and necessary staff quarters and utilities improvements.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced the awarding of a $73,948 contract to the Ruud Construction Company, Spokane, Washington, for the construction of seven bridges on the Colville Indian reservation in central Washington.

The bridges are part of a construction program for the summer of 1957 which will provide better farm-to-market and school bus and mail route roads on the reservation.

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Glenn L. Emmons, said the seven bridges total 354 feet. One will be a reinforced concrete structure 98.5 feet in length, supported on concrete piling; the other six will be reinforced concrete deck bridges supported on treated timber trestles. Under an agreement between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Okanogan County, the bridges and the 10.85 miles of road, contract planned for award in early June, will be turned over to Okanogan County for maintenance.

Commissioner Emmons said the Bureau reviewed 10 bids ranging to a high of $105,584.10 before making the award. The engineer's estimate was $84,344.50.