OPA

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of a three-member Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation Commission.

The members of the Commission are Hawley Atkinson, Sun City, Arizona; Robert E. Lewis, Zuni, New Mexico; and the Reverend Paul Urbano, Phoenix, Arizona.

Legislation passed December 22, 1974 to bring about a settlement of a long standing land dispute between the Navajo and Hopi Tribes established the Commission and its functions.

The purpose of the Commission is to plan and direct a relocation program for those Navajo or Hopi Indians required to move from their present residence as a result of the settlement of the land dispute.

Atkinson is an economic development consultant, who was special assistant for economic development to Governor Jack Williams of Arizona from 1970-1975.

During this time and also from 1968 to 1970 he had special responsibilities as liaison from the State of Arizona to the Four Corners Regional Commission and to the Arizona Indian Tribes. Previously, he had been employed by the Indian Development District of Arizona and the Navajo Tribe.

Lewis was for many years the Chairman of the Zuni Tribal Council and is the immediate Past President of the National Tribal Chairmen's Association. Under his leadership the Zuni Tribe assumed responsibility for the direction of all reservation programs provided by the ·Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Urbano is the director of the All Saints Episcopal Church in Phoenix. He has held that position since 1952. The Rev. Urbano is the Chairman of the Department of Missions for the Diocese of Arizona and is the founder of the San Pablo School for Boys in Phoenix.

About 1.8 million acres of land in northeast Arizona is involved in the dispute. This land completely surrounds the Hopi Reservation and is itself completely surrounded by the Navajo Reservation. It is commonly referred to as the Navajo-Hopi Joint Use Area.

The land was set aside by Executive Order in 1882 for the Hopis and such other Indians that the Secretary of the Interior will settle thereon. The Navajos, with the approval of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, moved into most of the Joint Use Area in the 1930's and are still there.

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus and Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Wayne Ducheneaux jointly announced today that the Department of the Interior has agreed to adopt environmental regulations enacted by the tribe to govern mineral development and oil and gas leasing activities on tribal and allotted land within the tribe's reservation in South Dakota.

This will be the first time a tribe's environmental regulations will have been accepted in place of the Department's general regulations. The action parallels recent Interior acceptance of state mining and reclamation standards for mining activities on Federal lands in several western states.

"The agreement with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe" represents a significant advance in the United States' commitment to self-determination for Indian tribes," Secretary Andrus said.

He added that while the Bureau of Indian Affairs still has ultimate responsibility for insuring adequate protection of the environment in reservation mineral leasing activities, the new agreement allows the tribe to establish the standards to be enforced by the BIA, so long as those standards are no less stringent than existing Federal regulations.

Secretary Andrus and Chairman Ducheneaux noted that the agreement disposes of litigation brought by the tribe to compel compliance with tribal requirements in mining operations on allotted lands within the reservation, allotted lands are not tribally owned through within the reservation jurisdiction.

Under the new agreement, the Tribe will determine in the first instance whether proposed mineral leasing activity subject to BIA regulation complies with applicable tribal environmental standards, The Secretary will accept this tribal determination, providing he does not find it arbitrary and capricious.

A preliminary injunction has been issued which prevents non-Indians from interfering with the Omaha Tribe's possession of valuable farm land in the Blackbird Bend area of the Omaha Indian Reservation in Iowa, the Department of the Interior said today.

The action was taken by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa on June 5, 1975, in response to a request by the United States as trustee for the tribe.

Interior Solicitor Kent Frizzell said: "The situation is one which could have led to needless violence and bloodshed. The action of the court will serve to stabilize the present dispute while the Interior Department continues to take the necessary steps that will allow the Omaha Tribe to take peaceful possession of over 3,000 acres of land that, in the opinion of the Interior Department, rightfully belongs to them."

For more than twenty years, non-Indians have been farming on land that was separated from the main portion of the Omaha Reservation by a series of man-made changes in the Missouri River. In 1974, after a number of studies and investigations reviewing an 1867 survey of the land, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson concluded that the land was part of the reservation. In April, at the tribe's direction and with the sanction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, individual Omaha Indians took possession of the land.

The non-Indian farmers brought an action in an Iowa State Court which ordered the Indians ejected from the land.

Acting in its responsibility as trustee for Indian lands, the Department of the Interior then requested the Justice Department to go into Federal Court on behalf of the Omaha Tribe and file a quiet title action against all non-Indians claiming an interest in Blackbird Bend, seeking damages and past profits from those who have farmed the land. In this suit, filed May 19, the Government requested a preliminary injunction to restrain non-Indian farmers from interfering with the Indian's occupancy of the land.

The action of the Court means that the tribe will remain in possession of the land and be able to farm it until the case is finally decided.

Solicitor Frizzell said the action was "indicative of the Department's determination to protect Indian rights. This sort of dispute is one that ought to be settled in the courts, with the United States advocating the Indians' position."

Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner Morris Thompson proclaimed the decision as a "great victory for the Omaha tribe." While the non-Indians had been in possession of the land before April for many years, the Commissioner noted that "they have been nothing more than trespassers, always with notice that the tribe had a strong and rightful claim to the land. This claim is fully supported by the Bureau."

Proposed regulations governing eligibility for preference in employment in the Bureau of Indian Affairs are being published in the Federal Register, Acting Deputy Commissioner of Indian Affairs Raymond V. Butler announced today.

The regulations define the term "Indian" for purposes of initial hire, promotions, transfers and all other appointments to vacancies in the Bureau.

Those persons entitled to Indian preference, according to the regulations are:

• Members of any recognized Indian tribe now under Federal jurisdiction;
• Descendants of such members who were, on June l, 1934, residing within the present boundaries of any Indian reservation;
• All others of one-half or more of Indian blood of tribes indigenous to the United States;
• Eskimos and other aboriginal people of Alaska; and
• For the next three years from the effective date of these regulations, a person of at least one-quarter degree Indian ancestry of a currently federally recognized tribe whose rolls have been closed by an Act of Congress.

The proposed regulations have a grandfather clause which protects all persons employed by the Bureau on the effective date of these regulations who received preference in any previous appointment. They will continue to be preference eligibles so long as they are continuously employed by the Bureau.

These regulations implement a long-standing Federal policy which was clarified and strengthened by a 1974 Supreme Court decision.

Comments should be sent within 45 days after publication to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Division of Personnel Management, Washington, D.C. 20245 .

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that new regulations governing the fishing rights of the Metlakatla Indian Community within the Annette Islands Reserve in Alaska were published in the Federal Register June 5.

The purpose of the new regulations is to give the Metlakatla Indians the opportunity to catch their fair share of the annual salmon run.

Salmon canning is the chief industry of the community and the Reserve includes the waters within 3,000 feet of the shoreline of the islands.

Previous regulations provided that fishing by the Indians within the Reserve was subject to certain State regulations. The new regulations permit the Secretary of the Interior or his representative to allow exceptions to the State regulations.

The Annette Islands in southeast Alaska are about 700 miles north of Seattle, Washington.

Wyman J. McDonald, a member of the Flathead Indian Tribe, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Mescalero Agency in New Mexico. His appointment will be effective March 30.

He has been since 1971 executive director of Tri-State Tribes, Inc., in Billings Montana. This organization has been involved in training and other work with Indian Community Action Programs in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

McDonald, who was born in St. Ignatius, Montana in 1938, is a 1962 graduate of the University of Montana. He has completed the Interior Department's manager development program and taken special courses in industrial and general development at the universities of New Mexico and Arizona State.

A Marine Corps veteran, McDonald has worked with both OEO and EDA in Washington, DC. He has seven years previous experience with the BIA, at which time he served as an employment assistance officer, probation and juvenile officer and tribal affairs assistant.

McDonald is a former chairman of the Red Lake Reservation Community Services Committee and a former member of the Northern Minnesota Human Relations Commission.

Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe and officers of the Alaska Native Regional Corporation, Konaig, Inc., today signed an agreement which will facilitate the conveyance of more than one million acres of land to the Corporation and its associated village corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The agreement provides the mechanism for processing land selections in the Konaig region and effecting conveyance of the land despite litigation pending in court.

Secretary Kleppe said that he expects this agreement to serve as a pattern for similar agreements with other Alaska regional corporations. "It gives us a way to convey the land to the Alaska Natives without waiting for final adjudication of easement questions. It sorts out and preserves the rights of the Alaskan Natives and the Government, whatever the court should decide."

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, enacted in 1971, provided for a cash settlement totaling about $1 billion, to be paid over a period of years, plus selection by the Natives of about 40 million acres of Federally owned lands in Alaska.

Koniag, Inc., is one of the 12 regional corporations, established under the Act, to share in the land distribution. Each of the regional corporations represent Native people with a common cultural heritage and common interests. Koniag, Inc., is composed of people from Kodiak Island and surrounding areas.

Secretary Kleppe said that the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation had signed an agreement in August to pave the way for beginning the conveyance of their land.

It is anticipated that the ten remaining corporations will approve agreements similar to the one signed today.

Dr. Robert Hall, Bureau of Indian Affairs Director of Special Education, has been elected Secretary/Treasurer of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, Inc.

The Association is composed of people within state education agencies having statewide responsibilities for the education of exceptional children, both handicapped and gifted. The BIA's federal school system is considered for administrative purposes, comparable to a state system.

James Galloway, Executive Director of the association said in a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, that Hall's election, "reflects a recognition among the Directors of Special Education in all states and territories of the leadership role played by Dr. Hall in administering the educational programs for handicapped Native American children.

Hall has been in his present post since 1967. He was formerly with the Bureau for the Education of the Handicapped in the United States Office of Education (HEW). He is a graduate of Pepperdine University; he earned his masters at San Francisco State and his doctorate at George Washington University.

Hall's office is part of the BIA's Indian Education Resource Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Stanley K. Hathaway, former two-term Governor of Wyoming, was sworn into office today as the 40th Secretary of the Interior.

Hathaway, 50, was confirmed by the United States Senate as Secretary of the Interior June 11, 1975.

Hathaway was born in Osceola, Nebraska, July 19, 1924, and moved with his family in 1928 to Goshen County, Wyoming. The family homesteaded near Huntley, Wyoming, and he graduated from Huntley High School in 1941.

He attended the University of Wyoming until 1943, when he joined the Army Air Force. During World War. II, he was a radio operator on a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber with the Eighth Air Force. His crew participated in 35 combat missions and he survived two crash landings. He received the French Croix de Guerre, Presidential Unit Citations, and five Air Medals.

Following the war, Hathaway entered the University of Nebraska, where he earned Bachelor of Arts and Law degrees. He met his future wife, Roberta Harley of Sioux City, Iowa, while attending law school. They were married in 1948 and have two daughters, Susan 22 and Sandra 20.

After graduation from law school, the Hathaways moved to Torrington, Wyoming, where he established a law practice. He was elected Goshen County Attorney twice, in 1954 and again in 1958.

In 1966, Hathaway was elected Governor of Wyoming. He was re-elected to a second term in 1970.

During his two terms in office, Governor Hathaway served as Chairman of the Western Governors' Conference, Chairman of the Federation of Rocky Mountain States, and Chairman of the National Governors' Conference Committee on Natural Resources and Environmental Management. He was also a member of the Executive Committee of the National Governors' Conference.

Stanley M. Speaks, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Agency at Anadarko, Oklahoma. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced that the appointment was effective June 22.

Speaks has been Acting Superintendent of the Intermountain Indian School at Brigham City, Utah, this past year. He has worked in Indian education programs with the Bureau of Indian Affairs since 1959. He was the Supervisory Guidance Counselor at Intermountain for five years.

Speaks has been actively involved in Indian youth programs, particularly scouting. He is a member of the American Indian Relations Committee (Boy Scouts of America) and was Chairman of the 16th American Indian Tribal Leaders' Seminar on Scouting 1972-73. He is also a member of the Rotary International.

Speaks, 41, is a graduate of Northeastern State College, Oklahoma, where he also earned a Master's degree in Education.