OPA

Edwin L. Demery, an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has been named Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Minneapolis area Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

In his new position, Demery is the BIA's top official in the four states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa.

A native of Fort Yates, North Dakota, Demery has been since 1970 Superintendent of the Minnesota Agency at Bemidji, Minnesota.

He began his career with BIA in 1952 as a teacher at the Crow Creek Agency in South Dakota. After serving at the Cheyenne River Agency in South Dakota and the Winnebago Agency in Nebraska, Demery came to the Minnesota Agency in 1957 as the Employment Assistance Officer.

A World War II Army veteran, Demery is a graduate of the South Dakota State University.

Rogers C. B. Morton, Secretary of the Interior, was honored as an "advocate or the American Indian" in an award given him by the Crow Indian Tribe of Montana. The presentation ceremony was held October 16 in the Secretary's office.

The framed document presented to Morton by the Crow Chairman, Pat Stands, cited his leadership in promoting Indian self-determination and his role in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement. The restoration of Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblo and Mount Adams to the Yakima Tribe were also mentioned.

Morton was the second recipient of the award named after Chief Plenty Coups, the last Crow chief. In 1921 Chief Plenty Coups, represented the Indian people of the United States at the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery. His war bonnet and coup stick are kept in the museum at the Tomb. His personal flag will now be placed there also. It was donated to the Museum by the tribe. Chief Plenty Coups was a friend of President Teddy Roosevelt and an acquaintance of many other high officials.

Morton, in his acceptance remarks, commented on the statesmanship of Chief Plenty Coups who both kept his tribe from war with the non-Indians and retained the tribal lands. Morton also said that President Ford had expressed his support for the efforts of the department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to help the “Indian community by a dynamic part of the United States community -- and not step-children or wards.”

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson welcomed the Crow delegation and other guests. Barney Old Coyote, a Crow Indian who is President of the American Indian National Bank, gave background information on Chief Plenty Coups and the award named for him. Colonel Eugene Bauer, Chief of Staff of the Military District of Washington, and Raymond Costanzo, Deputy Superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery received Chief Plenty Coups’ flag, presented by a relative of the Chief, Vincent Goes Ahead.

Other members of the Crow delegation were Mr. and Mrs. Calvin Bell Rock, Mrs. Stands and Mrs. Goes Ahead.

The Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, both of the U. S. Department of the Interior, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to further the cause of dam safety. The purpose of the memorandum, according to Commissioner of Reclamation R. Keith Higginson, is to identify those areas where Reclamation can provide technical expertise to assist BIA in developing formalized program for dam safety.

The memorandum points out that the BIA will retain ownership of its darns and continue to be responsible for their safety. The responsibility for correcting any safety problems will also be that of the BIA.

Services to be provided by Reclamation upon request would include:

• Technical expertise for review of existing structures including studies of hydrology, hydraulics, geology, seismology, seepage, inundation maps and structural stability.
• Technical expertise to perform inspections of dams with recommendations for corrective work if necessary.
• Technical training to establish a program for periodic surveillance.
• Recommendations for establishing emergency preparedness plans, installing monitoring instruments, developing communication and warning systems.

Similar Memorandums of Understanding between the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service respectively, are currently under consideration.

Twenty Alaska Natives from villages in the Kuskokwim Delta area came to Washington, D.C., in mid-May to tell United States Congressmen how pending legislation, H.R. 39, involving millions of acres of Alaska land could affect their lives.

The Eskimo group raised funds for the trip through tribal activities in 56 villages. For most of the group it was a first visit to the Nation’s Capital.

The group planned to visit the offices of 200 Members of Congress in their week's stay in Washington. They divided themselves into five working groups for these visits. Representatives of the group said that they felt it was important to try to help Congressmen from the other states to understand their subsistence culture and way of life and how the designation of D-2 lands in the bill touched on their village life.

While in Washington the group also visited with Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard to inform him about their efforts, to thank him for his support and to request the Department to develop a policy on subsistence. "It involves every part of our life," one of the group told Gerard. "It's an issue that won't die with Title 7," of H, R. 39.

The bill, passed in the House May 19 by a vote of 277-31, would set aside almost 100 million acres of federally-owned lands to be added to the United States systems of National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, Wild and Scenic Rivers and National Forests.

Stemming from the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, it has been described as the largest land conservation proposal in United States history.

The Department of the Interior is seeking public comment on regulations proposed for establishing public easements across Native lands in Alaska. The proposed regulations are published in the May 25 Federal Register. They carry out the policy decisions which were announced on March 6, 1978, following months of work by the Department with the Joint Federal-State Land Use Planning Commission, Alaska Natives and the State.

In announcing the proposed regulations, Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus said, "We have eliminated major roadblocks here which halted previous efforts to transfer title of land from the Federal Government to Alaska Natives under terms of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

The proposed regulations are designed to provide a minimal, non-duplicative set of easements across Native lands which will protect both Native property rights and the public right of access to public lands. The proposed easement regulations are designed to simplify the easement reservation portion of the land conveyance process.

The easements across Native lands are necessary to guarantee reasonable public access to public lands and major waterways. The easements, though, are not designed as recreational areas themselves, only as passage-ways between public lands and waterways.

"These proposed regulations," Secretary Andrus said, "protect the rights of all parties. They allow access to public lands while giving Native land owners the same basic right of control over their lands that is enjoyed by all other private landowners in other states. The early adoption of these regulations will end years of inaction and speed transfer of land to Alaska Natives."

Copies of the proposed regulations are available in the Federal Register or may be obtained at BIM offices throughout Alaska or by writing to the Bureau of Land Management at 555 Cordova Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501, Telephone: 907-277-1561.

Comments must be received by the Bureau of Land Management in Washington by June 26, 1978. They should be addressed to: Director (210), Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior, Washington D.C. 20240.

Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest J. Gerard today announced the appointment of James L. Sansaver as Special Assistant in the area of trust services.

Sansaver, a member of the Assiniboine-Sioux Tribes of the Ft. Peck Reservation, will work on the Assistant Secretary's immediate staff in matters involving natural resource programs and the strengthening of tribal governments.

An attorney from Wolf Point. Montana, Sansaver was admitted to the Montana Bar in 1961, practiced general law in his hometown form 1961 to 1969, and served as Montana County Attorney for two terms from 1961 to 1962.

Sansaver served in the BIA Billings Area Office as Chief, Division of Rights Protection, 1974 to 1976, and Chief, Division of Resource Development 1976 to present. He has also served in the BIA as a water rights liaison officer and tribal relations specialists an attorney in the Office of the Commissioner, Washington, D.C.

Gerard said that Sansaver's experience and education would provide "expertise urgently needed in dealing with the multi-faceted situations which involve the Indian tribes' natural resources, the Nation's energy needs and the knowledge of tribal government as it relates to resource development."

Educated at the University of Montana, Sansaver earned his B.A. in history and political science in 1957, L.D.D. in 1961 and J.D. in 1970. From 1976 to 1977. he was U.S. C.S.C. Fellow in the Woodrow Wilson School of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Sansaver, a member of the American Indian Bar Association, has served as legal rights consultant to the National Tribal Chairmen's Association (1971-1974), Montana International Policy Board, and the Native American Natural Resource Development Federation of the Northern Great Plains Tribes (1974-1976).

Sansaver, who is married and has three children, included in the 1978-79 Who's who in America series on Who's who in the West (16 Edition).

Indian Affairs Assistant Secretary Forrest J. Gerard today announced that he has appointed Suzan Harjo to be Special Assistant for Legislation and Liaison.

Harjo, 32, is Cheyenne and Creek and an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. She will serve on the Assistant Secretary's immediate staff in the areas of Congressional and Tribal relations.

Harjo has directed the legislative program of the Native American Rights Fund, a legal association devoted to the protection of Indian rights and the orderly development of Indian law. Her work with NARF included efforts toward defining and implementing Indian legislative priorities and objectives.

In announcing her appointment, the Assistant Secretary stated, "Ms. Harjo's varied experience, expertise and understanding of Indian priority issues will enhance our capability to address the complex intergovernmental and legislative issues involved in Indian Affairs at present.

Previously, Harjo served as communication Director and Legislative Assistant for the National Congress of American Indians, representing NCAI as a member of the Advisory Council of National Organizations to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Coordinator of the National Indian Litigation Committee. In 1975 she was Project Coordinator for the NCAI/ National Tribal Chairmen's Association review and analysis of the Federal regulations proposed for implementation of P.L. 93-638, the Indian Self-determination and Education Assistance Act.

Harjo has also served as News Director for the American Indian Press Association. Until 1974, she was faculty coordinator of a lecture series on Contemporary Indian issues for six semesters at the New York University School of Continuing Education. For four years she co-produced a bi-weekly news and analysis program, "Seeing Red"' for WBAI-f.m. Radio in New York City, where she also worked as Director of the Pacifica Network's Draa and literature Department.

A 1976-77 John Hay Whitney Research Fellow, Harjo has published articles and poetry in numerous forums and anthologies, the most recent of which is the 1978 anthology of contemporary Native American literature, The Remembered Earth. Since 1972, she has been included in the annual Directory of American Poets and is also listed in the International who's who of Poetry and the 1976 Directory of American Women. She has served on the appointments task force of the D.C. Women's Political Caucus and the National Women's Political Caucus.

Harjo, born in El Reno, Oklahoma, is married to Frank Ray Harjo, Creek, and has a twelve-year old daughter and a five year old son.

Proposed regulations governing the procedures by which an Indian group would be acknowledged to be an Indian tribe were published June 1 in the Federal Register, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

The increased number of Indian groups requesting that the Secretary of the Interior officially acknowledge them as Indian tribes has necessitated the development of uniform procedures to be followed.

The purpose of the regulations is to facilitate the official recognition of those American Indian tribal groups which have maintained their political, ethnic and cultural integrity despite the absence of any formal action by the Federal Government to acknowledge or implement a Federal relationship.

Under the regulations as proposed, the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs would acknowledge only those Indian tribes whose members and their ancestors existed in tribal relations since aboriginal times and have retained some aspects of their aboriginal sovereignty.

With these requirements, not every group of Indian people living in the same region or area would necessarily constitute a tribe, though they might be members of a club, corporation or other organization.

Proposed regulations on this matter were initially published on June 16, 1977. Because substantive changes were made on the basis of comments received, the revised procedures are again being published as proposed regulations.

Comments should be sent within 30 days after publication to the Office of Indian Services, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 18th and C Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. 20245.

A plan for the use and distribution of $725,000 awarded by the Indian Claims Commission to the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington is being published in the Federal Register, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

The award is compensation for lands taken from the Joseph Band of the Nez Perce in 1875.

According to the plan approved by Congress, effective May 1, the portion of the award going to the Colville Tribes will be distributed on a per capita basis to the members.

The Nez Perce Tribe will use twenty percent of its portion for tribal industrial, recreational, agricultural and financial investment programs. The remainder will be distributed per capita to tribal members.

The Administration's Water Policy Message sent to Congress today by President Carter recommended that States put up a front-end share of the cost of all Federal water projects.

The President said that State governments should assume a share of the cost over and above existing cost-sharing of Federal water projects. The proposal was among several initiatives the President announced to achieve a new national emphasis on water conservation, enhance Federal State cooperation, increase attention to environmental quality, and improve Federal water resource programs.

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus, in a follow-up comment, strongly endorsed the President's recommendation that States share up-front costs of water projects.

"By contributing to the initial costs of water projects, States will exercise great influence over the location of Federal dams as well as play a leading part in deciding the priority rights of projects," Andrus said.

For project purposes with vendible outputs, such as water supply or hydroelectric power States would contribute 10 percent of the costs, proportionate to and phased with Federal appropriations.

For project purposes without vendible outputs, such as flood control, States' financing share would be 5 percent.

There would be a limit on State participation of 1/4 of 1 percent of the State's general fund revenue per project per year, so that a small State would not be precluded from having a very large project located in it.

"Cost-sharing will occupy a critical role in the President's new water policy," Andrus said. "It is a genuine reform that will assure more even-handed cooperation between States and the Federal Government."

The State cost sharing proposal would apply on a mandatory basis to projects not yet authorized. However, for projects in the authorized backlog, States which voluntarily enter into cost-sharing arrangements would achieve expedited consideration and priority for project funding, as long as other project planning requirements were met.

Soil Conservation Service projects will be completely exempt from the State cost-sharing proposal, the President said.

Specific initiatives spelled out for Federal agencies include:

Adding water conservation as consideration in the Principles and Standards which govern the planning of water resource projects.

- Making water conservation a condition of the municipal water supply and sewage treatment programs of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce.

Integrating water conservation into the housing programs of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Administration, and Department of Agriculture.

Using existing programs of the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, and Housing and Urban Development to provide technical assistance to farmers and urban dwellers on how to conserve water. Requiring water Conservation in Federal buildings and facilities. Asking all Federal agencies to examine and implement appropriate opportunities for water conservation.

The president also recommended that Congress provide $25 million annually in matching grants for technical assistance to States for water conservation purposes.

Environmental protection initiatives in the message included a directive to the Secretary of the Interior and other Federal agencies to vigorously implement the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act and other environmental statutes; implementation of Executive Order 11988 on flood plain management; cooperation with States to protect instream flows and groundwater through provision of data and where possible, operation of Federal projects.