OPA

Proposed regulations dealing with the acquisition of and for Indians in a trust or restricted status are being published in the Federal Register, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

The proposed regulations cite the authorities and enunciate the policies and procedures which are to be followed in such acquisitions. The regulations have been developed to meet a need for a clearly stated uniform policy in the acquisition of and for Indians. Several laws enacted in recent years add authorities such acquisitions and contain differing requirements and conditions for the exercise of such authority.

Comments and suggestions on the proposed regulations should be sent within 90 days of publication to the Area Realty Officer, Phoenix Area Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, P.O Box 7007, Phoenix, Arizona 85011.

Indian leaders of the National Tribal Chairmen's Association (NTCA) had a "productive" meeting with Vice President Walter Mondale at the White House July 24, according to Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard.

Gerard said that the Indian, in an hour-long meeting, discussed various Indian programs and trust-related issues but "stressed the need for Government consultation with the elected leaders of Indian tribes before making Indian policy decisions."

Gerard said that Vice President Mondale agreed to meet on a regular basis with members of the NTCA Board.

Mondale told the Indians that the Administration was committed to a policy of consultation on Indian matters. He added, however, that consultation did not always bring agreement. He said the Administration, despite Indian objection, did not plan to change its position on moving Bureau of Indian Affairs education programs into the proposed Department of Education.

NTCA President Roger Jourdain, Chairman of Minnesota's Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, was spokesman for the Indian group. Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus, Gerard, Deputy Assistant Secretary George Goodwin and Indian Affairs Associate Solicitor Thomas Fredericks participated in the meeting.

President Carter greeted the Indians on the south lawn of the White House where a group of young Chippewa students from Red lake prior to the meeting preformed a victory dance in the colorful costumes. Jourdain gave the President a war club and said "We want you to go out on the warpath and do something for our young people."

Interior Solicitor Leo M. Krulitz announced today he has named Claudeen Bates Arthur a Field Solicitor for the Window Rock, Arizona, and Office, which provides legal service to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the Navajo Indian Reservation.

Ms. Arthur, 36, is now an attorney in the Division of Indian Affairs in the Solicitor's Washington Office. She will begin work in Window Rock on August 14, replacing Dale H. Itschner who was transferred to the Portland, Oregon, Regional Solicitor's Office.

"I know of no more challenging legal assignment in the Department and of no one better qualified to meet it that Ms. Arthur," said Krulitz. "Her background experience and proven legal talent make her uniquely suited to the Window Rock post and I'm delighted she's available to fill it."

The Window Rock BIA office, Krulitz said, is the largest outside Washington, D.C. with over 5000 employees and an annual budget in excess of $130 million to serve the Nation's largest Indian tribe and the largest Indian reservation.

Ms. Arthur, a Navajo was born in Ganado, Arizona, and attended elementary and high school at the Navajo Methodist Missionary School in Farmington, New Mexico. She was a 1960 National Merit Scholar.

After receiving her Bachelor of Science degree in biology in 1965 from New Mexico State University at Las Cruces, she was a caseworker for the New Mexico Department of Welfare in Farmington, the taught science and English at her old high school for three years.

Ms. Arthur entered the Arizona State University Law School in 1971, earning her juris doctor degree in 1974. She was awarded an American Indian Lawyer Training Program fellowship and worked as an attorney in Shiprock, New Mexico, before starting her own general law practice on the Navajo Reservation. She left private practice to join the Solicitor's staff in Washington in the fall of 1977.

She is a member of the State Bar of New Mexico and the Bar of the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court of New Mexico and the Courts of the Navajo Nation. She and her husband, Harris, have three children.

A plan for the use and distribution of approximately $1.4 million awarded to the Creek Nation of Indians by the Indian Claims Commission is being published in the Federal Register, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today

The award is additional compensation for 1.4 million acres of land in Alabama and Georgia taken from the tribe in 1818.

According to the plan, approved by Congress and made effective June 15, 1978, the funds will be divided between the Creek Nation of Oklahoma and an unorganized group of descendants of the Creek Indians east of the Mississippi.

The funds apportioned to the Eastern Creeks will be distributed on a per capita basis after an updated roll of eligible persons is presented by the Secretary of the Interior.

The funds received by the Creek Tribe of Oklahoma will be used for social and economic development programs for the benefit of the Creek members by blood.

Creek Freedmen, former slaves and their descendants who were granted rights of citizenship in the Creek Nation by an 1866 treaty, will not participate in the distribution of the award because they were not affiliated with the tribe in 1818 when the land was taken.

An Indian Claims Commission award of almost $44 million for Sioux lands ceded the Indians in 1868 "is not a settlement of the much publicized Black Hills Claim;" a Bureau of Indian Affairs spokesman said today.

The Black Hills Claim, not yet settled, is for land west of the Missouri River in South Dakota ceded by various Sioux groups in 1876.

The $44 million award, largest yet made oy the Commission, is compensation for lands in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska and an area east of the Missouri River in South Dakota.

If the award, granted July 19, is not appealed, the Bureau of Indian Affairs will proceed to determine which modern Sioux tribes and groups are the proper beneficiaries of the award.

The award is for lands held by the Teton (Lakota or Western) Sioux West of the Missouri River (excluding that in South Dakota) and lands east of the river held by the Teton Sioux and the Yanktonai Sioux. The Yankton Sioux (a group distinct from the Yanktonai) had an interest, together with the Teton group, in the western lands. The Yankton interest, however, is not included in this award. It will be considered by the Commission in another docket.

Under the provisions of the Indian Judgment Funds Act of 1973, the Secretary of the Interior will submit his recommendations to Congress, in the form of a proposed plan or proposed legislation. These recommendations will include the identity of the beneficiary tribes or groups, the division of the funds and the plan for distribution and use of the funds.

Revisions in the regulations governing contracts and grants under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance (P.L.93-638) are being published in the Federal Register, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

The most significant change is the addition of procedures to deal with situation in which a contract proposal is adequate but the Bureau does not have sufficient funds to finance it.

The revisions, published as proposed regulations in March, 1976, will be effective 30 days after publication.

The Bureau is also publishing in the same issue of the Federal Register proposed regulations to revise the hearings and appeals procedure when proposed contracts are declined under provisions of the Self-Determination Act or when the Bureau lacks funding for the proposal.

Written comments on theses proposed regulations should be sent within 30 days to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Self-Determination Staff (code 106), 18th and C Streets, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20245.

The Department of the Interior and the State of California today announced all fishing for fall chinook salmon and steelhead trout will be closed at midnight Sunday, August 27 in the Klamath River below the Highway 101 bridge, and severely curtailed above the bridge.

The emergency closure is necessary because of the limited return, compared to previous years, of adult fish of both species. Indians and non-Indians alike expressed grave concern for perpetuation of these valuable commercial and sport fish if a sufficient number of adults is not permitted to ascend the Klamath and Trinity Rivers to reproduce.

"Population estimates for the years 1976 and 1977 suggest the Klamath River chinook salmon population approximates 200,000 fish." said Interior Solicitor Leo M. Krulitz. "To perpetuate this run, biologists estimate that 115,000 adult fish must return to the spawning grounds annually. Available data for this year suggest that probably less than 10 percent of that expected number of fish have entered the river."

"Although catch statistics for the Indian commercial fishery are unavailable sketchy information on all catches for previous years suggest that the river harvest this is considerably lower than in years past."

At least two explanations are possible for the apparent low numbers of fish accounted for in the Klamath River this year. First, the run may be delayed or reduced as a result of some environmental factor in the ocean.

There is some indication that this may be the case as anadromous fish runs are the late or smaller in a number of other major west coast rivers.

Second, an increase in the ocean harvest, possibly enhanced by the delayed entry into the river, might reduce the number of fish available to enter the river, of particular interest is the fact that the California ocean harvest of chinook salmon was considerably higher in 1978 than for the same period in 1977, especially for the area around the Klamath River.

The available data are inadequate to determine whether the run has been delayed or if the population is below anticipated levels.

"There is no question that the number of fish which has entered the river is much below the number at this time in the past years. However, the cause for the poor return is of less importance than the biological consequences for the resource," Krulitz said.

Consultation with qualified Indian fishermen and California State personnel has resulted in substantial support for the need to close all fishing below the Highway 101 bridge, the area of greatest fish vulnerability, and to close all commercial fishing and sports fishing for salmon above the bridge.

Commercial fishing is considered to have a greater impact on the resource than taking fish for ceremonial or subsistence purposes. For that reason, Indian subsistence fishing will continue to be allowed five nights per week above the bridge.

"All of these decisions reflect tremendous cooperation and substantial meant by all parties concerned," said the Solicitor.

The closure will be in effect until sufficient number of all chinook salmon have passed the Highway 101 bridge check point to guarantee conservation of the fishery.

Theopule L. Traversie, a former Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Cheyenne River Agency at Eagle Butte, South Dakota.

Traversie was formerly in the BIA's Portland Area Office where he worked as a loan specialist. A United States Navy veteran, Traversie earned a degree in business administration in 1963 from Northern State College in Aberdeen, South Dakota and completed law studies at the University of South Dakota in 1966.

Traversie, 44, is a member of the South Dakota State Bar. He was the Assistant Director of the OEO Legal Service in Eagle Butte from 1966 to 1970 and later practiced law in Rapid City, South Dakota.

He was Chairman of the United Sioux Tribes of South Dakota 1972-74

Russell A. Bradley, a member of the Kickapoo Tribe of Kansas, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Winnebago Agency in Nebraska. His appointment is effective September 10, 1978.

Bradley, 36, forked as an accountant for the Cornell Oil Company of Dallas and the Falstaff Corporation in California before moving to North Dakota as business manager for the United Tribes Training Center at Bismarck in 1971. He was subsequently Administrative Officer at the Pierre Indian School in South Dakota. Since 1974 he has been District Representative at the Forth Berthold Agency at New Town, North Dakota.

He is a 1962 graduate of the Haskell Indian Institute and a U.S. Army veteran.

A draft environmental impact statement considering the consequences of transferring certain public lands to the Navajo Tribe under the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act, P.L. 93-531, is now available.

According to a notice published in the Federal Register August 18, single copies of the statement may be obtained from the Flagstaff Administrative Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, P.O. Box 1889, Flagstaff, Arizona 86002.

The legislation provided that the tribe be given the opportunity to purchase 250,000 acres of public lands to facilitate the relocation of some 3,000 Navajos from the former Navajo-Hopi joint use area.

The EIS considers land, applied for by the tribe, in Arizona's House Rock Valley and Paria Plateau and five alternate tracts in Arizona and New Mexico.

Public hearings on the statement will be held September 11 at Farmington, New Mexico; September 12, Oraibi, Arizona; September 13 Page Arizona; and September 15 at Phoenix.

Comments on the statement should be sent within 4 days to William Benjamin, at the Flagstaff address above. For further information call Benjamin at 602-774-5261.