OPA

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that the Bureau of Indian Affairs sub agency office, serving the Cocopah and Quechan Indian Tribes, has been made an agency office.

The office was formerly under the Colorado River Agency at Parker, Ariz., some 125 miles north of Yuma Ariz. The Fort Yuma Office is located three miles northwest of Yuma on the California portion of the reservation.

The Colorado River Agency will continue to serve the Chemehuevi, the Fort Mojave and the Colorado River Indian Tribes.

All of the tribes affected by this organizational change have expressed support for the new structure through tribal council resolutions.

Establishment of the new agency is expected to make Bureau services more available to the Cocopah and Quechan Tribes. The distance and the lack of public transportation between Yuma and Parker has been a limitation.

Both agencies are under the Bureau's Phoenix Area Office.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it plans to distribute more than $14 million to the Absentee Delaware Tribe of Western Oklahoma and the Cherokee Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma on July 14, 1977.

The Department announced June 16 that it planned to make the distribution September 15, 1977, but that it would modify its plans for distribution of the funds in accord with any forthcoming court order. Last week the Oklahoma Delawares were given a writ of mandamus requiring the Department to make payment "forthwith."

On February 23, 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitution­ality of the Act of October 3, 1972, which provides for the distribution of judgment funds to the Oklahoma Delawares. The Kansas Delawares filed for reconsideration which was denied.

The September 15 award date was set to allow Congress time to act on pending legislation which would give 10 percent of the money to the Kansas Delawares.

The money was awarded to the Delawares by the Indian Claims Commission for land taken by the United States in violation of an 1854 treaty.

A final environmental impact statement concerning the long-term leasing of Tesuque Pueblo Reservation lands north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, for residential development use by the Sangre de Cristo Development Company is now available to the public, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

The statement considered the human and physical environmental effects associated with the request for approval by the Secretary of the Interior of a 99-year lease for 1,342 acres of land, with an option to lease an additional 4,100 acres for developing a residential community of 16,000 people.

The Tesuque Pueblo now has about 300 residents.

Limited numbers of copies of the statement may be obtained from the Bureau of Indian Affairs Albuquerque Area Office, 5301 Central Avenue, N.E., Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108. Copies are available for inspection at the Area Office, the BIA Central Office in Washington, D.C. and at the Northern Pueblos Agency, Federal Post Office Building, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

J. Kenneth Adams, a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Agency at Sisseton, South Dakota.

Adams has been the Administrative Officer at the agency. He has been serving as the acting superintendent for the past ten months.

An army veteran, Adams first worked for the Federal Government in 1952 as an accountant with the Veterans Administration. He came to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1956 as Property and Supply Officer at the Crow Agency in Montana. He has since worked in the Minneapolis Area Office, the Fort Totten Agency in North Dakota and the Southern Ute Agency in Colorado.

For two years, 1971-73, he was Executive Director of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Tribe.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the establishment of a new Bureau of Indian Affairs agency office to serve Indians in the state of Michigan.

The new agency, to be located at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, will have in its jurisdiction the Bay Mills Indian Community and the Original Band of Sault Ste. Marie Chippewas at Sault Ste. Marie; the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community at L'Anse; the Hannaville Indian Community at Escanaba and the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe at Mt. Pleasant.

These tribal groups were previously served, together with all the Indians of Wisconsin, by an agency at Ashland, Wisconsin.

The organized tribes in Michigan, as well as the Intertribal Council of Michigan, have sought the establishment of a Michigan agency so that the Bureau of Indian Affairs services would be more directly and easily available to them.

The establishment of the new agency will reduce travel distances and costs, permit more day-to-day contact and eliminate the complications of one agency dealing with two sets of state agencies and laws.

The new office will be under the Bureau's Minneapolis Area Office.

Because of widespread interest, the opportunity to comment on a draft environmental impact statement for the proposed operating criteria for the Lower Carson-Lower Truckee River Basins is being extended, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

Notice was published in the Federal Register August 2, 1977 that the deadline for written comments has been changed from July 9 to September 30 and that a supplemental hearing will be held September 22 in the Jot Travis Auditorium, University of Nevada, Reno.

The pertinent river basins are located principally in Churchill and Washoe Counties, Nevada.

Persons wanting to present their views at the hearing should contact Harold Ranquist, Department of the Interior., 900 West First Street, Reno, Nevada 89503; telephone 702-322-4042.

Single copies of the environmental statement may be obtained by writing to the above address. Notice of availability of the statement was published in the Federal Register on May 23, 1977.

Gordon E. Cannon, a Kiowa Indian, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Fort Totten Agency, North Dakota. The appointment is effective August 28.

Cannon, 39, has been the Realty Officer at the Colville Agency, Nespelem, Washington the past three years.

A graduate of the Holy Rosary Mission School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Cannon worked for eleven years in the BIA's Portland Area Office, Oregon. He has also worked at the Western Washington Agency and the Hoopa Agency. He is a U.S. Army veteran.

Peter Three Stars, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, has been named superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Western Washington Agency at Everett, Washington. The appointment is effective August 28.

Three Stars, 50, has been superintendent of the BIA agency at Bethel, Alaska since 1974.

A World War II Army veteran, Three Stars has worked with BIA for 27 years. He has been a teacher, worked in job placement programs and for many years was a specialist in tribal government services. He worked in the Bureau's Central Office in Washington, D.C., from 1971 to 1974.

Three Stars is a graduate of the State College at Springfield, South Dakota.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that Rebecca H. Dotson, a Navajo woman, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' agency at Chinle, Arizona.

Ms. Dotson is the second Indian woman to hold an agency superintendent's position. She had been the education program administrator at the agency, one of five on the Navajo Reservation.

Ms. Dotson, 45, is a graduate of the Northern Arizona University and has a Master's degree from Arizona State University. Much of her career has been spent as a classroom teacher.

She became a teacher supervisor in 1970 and assistant principal in 1972 at the Bureau's Many Farms School in Chinle.

A member of Dine Bi Olta and the Navajo Division of Education of the Navajo Tribe, she has also been active in the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women and various educational organizations.

Proposed regulations to implement the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (P.L. 93-638) are being published September 4 in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

There will be 30 days after publication for comments from interested parties.

"Because this legislation is so important to Indian people," Commissioner Thompson said, "there has been very extensive consultation with the Indian community in the development of these regulations. Final regulations will be published November 4, so we are hoping that Indian leaders will utilize this opportunity to comment to make the regulations the best possible."

The Act was signed by President Ford January 4, 1975. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, together with the Indian Health Service, held more than 30 consultation sessions (April through June) with Indian groups throughout the country to discuss the Act and a draft of regulations. Recommendations made in these meetings were incorporated into draft regulations mailed to all tribal leaders and heads of Indian organizations in August. The published regulations and a paper describing the Bureau's philosophy and procedures for development of the regulations will be mailed to these same leaders.

The first part of the Act gives Indian tribes increased opportunities to govern their own affairs. It directs the Secretary of the Interior (and his delegate the Commissioner of Indian Affairs) to contract with the tribes or tribal organizations for the operation of reservation programs, upon re­quest from the tribe.

This part also provides for grants to strengthen tribal governmental capabilities, waivers of Federal contracting requirements and the use of Federal employees in tribal programs under certain conditions.

The second part of the Act deals with assistance to non-Federal schools serving Indian students. It authorizes funding for construction of needed school facilities for public and tribally-operated schools and amends the Johnson-O'Malley Act of 1934. It stresses the role of the tribal governing bodies and local Indian communities in the education of Indian children.