OPA

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation (Tribes), The Montana Power Company (MPC), PPL Montana (PPLM), Trout Unlimited (TU), and the U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior) announce that they have reached an agreement to settle the Montana Power Company v. FERC lawsuit, currently pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes said, "This important agreement will protect the tribal trust resources of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. It is an excellent example of how Federal resource agencies are working collaboratively and constructively with licensees, tribes and others in the hydropower licensing arena."

Under the agreement, the Tribes will receive approximately $35 million from MPC and PPLM to fund fish and wildlife mitigation activities for the protection and utilization of the Flathead Indian Reservation in connection with the operation of the Kerr Hydroelectric Project.

Vice Chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council, Jamie Hamel said, "The Tribes are pleased to have the long-standing dispute regarding Kerr Project environmental mitigation resolved and we appreciate the efforts put forth by all parties toward achieving a settlement. The Tribes believe that the terms of the settlement are consistent with the terms of the Hellgate Treaty of 1855 and with the requirements of the Federal Power Act. It will protect the Flathead Reservation from impacts attributable to the Kerr Project so that the Tribes can preserve the Reservation as their traditional homeland."

The Kerr Hydroelectric Project is a 170 megawatt project that includes a dam, powerhouse and other facilities located on the Flathead Indian Reservation downstream of the natural outlet of Flathead Lake in northwestern Montana. Project boundaries encompass all of Flathead Lake. It was originally licensed to a predecessor of MPC in 1930 for 50 years. The project was relicensed in 1985 as part of a settlement among MPC, the Tribes and Interior that allowed Interior subsequently to require additional license conditions for the adequate protection of fish and wildlife. In November 1995, Interior issued the contemplated license conditions and FERC included them in 1997 and 1998 orders amending the license.

MPC challenged the license conditions in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Tribes, TU, and Interior intervened in the litigation. MPC's project interest was recently sold and its portion of the license transferred to PPLM in December 1999.

PPLM, the Tribes and Interior filed an application to amend various articles of the existing Kerr Hydroelectric Project license under the agreement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on April 21. Shortly after FERC approval, funds under the settlement will be paid to the Tribes, and the MPC v. FERC lawsuit will be dismissed.

The settlement would resolve the challenges raised by MPC to Interior's conditions and retain the mitigation measures Interior considers necessary to provide for the protection and utilization of the Flathead Indian Reservation. These amendments will not change the requirement that the project be operated as a base load facility to protect fish and wildlife downstream of the dam, nor the requirement to make annual fish and wildlife mitigation payments of $1.44 million (in today's dollars).

Dick Cromer, Executive Vice President of MPC, said, "We are pleased to be a party to this agreement. The parties worked well together and produced a settlement that is in the public interest."

PPLM President Roger L. Petersen echoed MPC's enthusiasm. He said, "PPLM is proud to be the new co-licensee for the Kerr Project with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and looks forward to a productive partnership with them. This settlement is important progress for the Tribes and we are honored to be a part of it."

Some of the terms of the settlement include:

• Payment to the Tribes of $10.75 million for fish and wildlife habitat restoration activities on the Reservation or, as needed, to supplement funding of fish stocking, supplementation, and reintroduction activities in Flathead Lake and the lower Flathead River;
• Payment to the Tribes of $7 million for fish stocking, supplementation, and reintroduction activities in Flathead Lake and the lower Flathead River;
• Payment to the Tribes of $17 million for fish and wildlife habitat acquisition on the Flathead Reservation.

"We've waited 15 years for a final agreement on getting fish and wildlife dollars from the Kerr project to the ground, so this settlement is an important achievement," says Bruce Farling, executive director of Montana Trout Unlimited, a national conservation group representing 120,000 conservation minded anglers, including 2,100 in Montana.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) today issued a proposed finding for Federal acknowledgement of The Nipmuc Nation headquartered in Sutton, Massachusetts, saying the Nation (petitioner) meets the seven criteria for Federal acknowledgement under 25 CFR Part 83. The positive proposed finding states that the petitioner exists as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law and meets the requirements for a government-to-government relationship with the United States. The Bureau found that a substantial portion of the petitioner’s members have ancestry from the contact-era Nipmuc bands, except through the twelve Nipmuc “praying towns” established by missionary John Eliot in the 1660s and 1670s. After the King Philip’s War of 1675-1676, there was continuity in the re-establishment of Hassanamisco and Chaubunagungamaug bands by prewar refugees who had gone to Natick, Massachusetts. There is continuity for both Hassanamisco and Chaubunagungamaug from the early 18th century through 1869, the date of the Massachusetts Enfranchisement Act and the commonwealth’s termination of trust responsibility over the land and funds of the two reservation bands.

The Nipmuc Nation, formerly The Nipmuc Nation, Hassanamisco Band, will now be subject to a 180-day public comment period and a 60-day response period after which the Bureau will issue a final determination. If this final determination is also positive, then members of The Nipmuc Nation will be eligible for certain rights and benefits accorded to tribes that have Federal recognition, which establishes that a special government-to-government relationship exists between the tribe and the United States. Currently, there are 561 Federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. The address of The Nipmuc Nation is 156 -BIA-Worcester-Providence Road, Suite 28, Sutton Square Mall, Sutton, MA 01527.

-BIA-

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has scheduled a public meeting August 8- 9,2000 in Reston, Virginia, to address technical questions that have been raised by state, local and tribal officials concerning the Bureau of Indian Affairs' March 31, 2000 proposed findings to acknowledge federal recognition of the Eastern Pequot Indians of Connecticut and the Paucatuck Eastern Pequot Indians of Connecticut.

The meeting was requested May 18,2000 by the Connecticut Attorney General's office. Comments on the proposed findings are due by September 27, 2000.

The meeting will run from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., August 8- 9,2000 at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 2051 Mercator Drive, Reston, Virginia.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has issued a final determination to acknowledge the Duwamish Tribal Organization, hereafter referred to as the Duwamish of Renton, Washington, as existing as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law. The Duwamish first filed a letter of intent to petition for Federal acknowledgement on June 7, 1977. The Bureau made its final determination based on documentary and interview evidence, which formed the basis for a 1996 proposed finding not to acknowledge the Duwamish, and an analysis of information and arguments received in response to the proposed finding by third parties and the Duwamish themselves. In addition, the Bureau reached factual conclusions after a review and analysis of the existing record in light of the additional evidence. Today’s final determination reverses the negative proposed finding issued 1996.

The review established that the Duwamish Tribal Organization (petitioner) has satisfied the criteria under the 1978 regulations on recognition (25 CFR Part 83). The Bureau concluded that while the petitioner meets the seven criteria for recognition throughout the period of first contact to the present, as an alternative basis for recognition, the petitioner has also demonstrated prior Federal acknowledgement in the form of numerous statutory references of the “Duwamish Tribe” or the “D’wamish Tribe” beginning with the United States Senate’s ratification of the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott in 1859 up until the final appropriation statute in 1923, and that the petitioner further meets the seven criteria for the period from 1923 to the present. Express statutory references also were found in an unbroken series of appropriations statutes beginning in 1860 and ending in 1923. The Bureau further concluded that the Duwamish met 1994 regulations requiring that a petitioner demonstrate historical continuity for the period commencing from the time of previous acknowledgement to the present. In light of the additional evidence, the Duwamish were determined to have met the criteria under both the 1978 and 1994 regulations. The final determination will become effective 90 days after being published in the Federal Register.

"On June 23, the parties to the case, Schaghticoke Tribal Nation vs. Bruce Babbit, Secretary of the United States Department of lnterior, and Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, United States Department of lnterior, filed a joint stipulation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia."

"The stipulation states the Department of Interior will decide by August 8, 2000, on the Schaghticoke tribe's request for concurrent consideration of its petition with the petition of the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe."

"The Department will not render any proposed finding, or any other proposed or final determination, on the petition for federal recognition filed by the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe until October 2, 2000."