OPA

High bonus bids totaling over $10,000,000 for oil and gas leases on Ute Indian lands in southwestern Colorado were opened by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on September 2 at Gallup, New Mexico, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst announced today.

On 41 tracts of Ute Mountain tribal land, comprising 92,062.96 acres, the average bonus bid per acre was $112.53 and the total of the high bids was $10,359,671.30. On one of the tracts the bid was $539.25 per acre.

Bids received on three tracts of Southern Ute tribal land, totaling 5,806.21 acres, averaged $27.44 per acre and brought in a total of $159,354.59.

One tract of individually owned Southern Ute land, comprising 640.54 acres, attracted a high bonus bid of $26,845.04 or $41.91 per acre.

The leases were offered under the terms of $1.25 per acre annual rental and a royalty of 16-2/3 percent on production.

Final action on the bonus offerings has not yet been taken by either of the tribal organizations or by the individual Indian landowners.

Reappointment of Turner Bear as Principal Chief of the Creek Indian Tribe of Oklahoma for a two-year term beginning October 5 was announced today by the Department of the Interior. He has been serving in the position for the past two years.

Under a 1906 law the President was empowered to appoint a Principal Chief periodically for each of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" of Oklahoma--Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole and Creek. In 1951 this appointing authority was delegated to the Secretary of the Interior.

The primary function of the Principal Chief is to represent the tribe on public occasions and in the execution of documents relating to tribal property.

Sales of timber from lands belonging to Indian tribes and individual Indians brought the owners an income of $10,937,485 in the fiscal year 1959, or 17 percent more than the amount in 1958, Acting Secretary of the Interior Elmer F. Bennett announced today.

The volume of timber cut under contract on Indian lands was 551 million board feet, an increase of 98 million board feet over the 1958 total.

Sawmills owned by three Indian tribal groups--the Menominee of Wisconsin, the Red Lake Chippewa of Minnesota, and the Navajo of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah-- converted to lumber about 40 million board feet of the total cut. Besides producing a profit for the tribal organizations, these mills also furnish employment for the resident Indians, Mr. Bennett pointed out.

Over the country as whole, there are about 6,500,000 acres of commercially valuable Indian timberland, Mr. Bennett explained. Eighty-three percent is owned by tribal groups and the balance by individual Indians. Ponderosa pine is the predominant species.

Cutting is concentrated on the mature and over mature trees which are susceptible to mortality from insect attacks, disease and old age. Their removal leaves vigorous young stands with fine growth potential.

Over the past 50 years about half of the commercially valuable Indian timber has been improved by such selective cutting under sustained yield management. Recent inventories indicate that the yearly cut can safely be increased on a substantial portion of the remaining timberlands.

The Department of the Interior announced today the award of a $120,788.86 contract for the construction of a municipal center on the Crow Creek Indian Reservation at Fort Thompson, South Dakota.

The contract provides for the construction of a concrete masonry building to serve a multiple use in the Indian community. The building will contain offices for a judge, jail administration space, quarters for incarceration of prisoners, and a large room which will serve as a library and be used for community gatherings, as well as for a courtroom.

The successful bidder was Buildings Materials, Inc., of Chamberlain, South Dakota. Three higher bids, ranging from $129,870.00 to $500,000.80, were received.

Final approval of an extensive revision of the Federal regulations on the management of Indian forest lands was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Among other changes, the new rules provide a system of appeal to the Secretary of the Interior from decisions made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on timber sales contracts.

Notice of intention to revise the regulations was published in the Federal Register on November 27, 1958. In the period which followed, the Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs received comments and recommendations from four representatives of Indian tribal groups, from the Western Pine Association, and from its own Area Office at Portland Oregon.

Several of the recommendations received were adopted and incorporated in the finally approved revision of the regulations. The most important of these provides that if an appeal is made to the Secretary by either party to a timber sales contract, the other party will be notified so that he can protect his interests.

In addition, the new regulations contain features carried over from the proposed version as published last November. Among the more important are a provision making it easier for an Indian to cut and sell timber from his own land and a new definition of the kinds of Indian lands that must be managed so as to produce a sustained yield of timber.

Martin M. Zoller, Superintendent of the Klamath Indian Agency in Oregon since 1956, will be the new superintendent at the Uintah and Ouray Agency, Fort Duchesne, Utah, effective October 4, the Department of the Interior announced today.

He succeeds Darrell Fleming who recently transferred to the Cherokee Agency in North Carolina.

A native of Soudan, Minnesota, Mr. Zoller first came with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1931 as a junior clerk at the Consolidated Chippewa Agency in Minnesota., Subsequently he served in administrative positions at Bismarck, North Dakota; at the Red Lake Agency, Minnesota; the Rosebud Agency, South Dakota; Consolidated Ute Agency, Colorado; and the Crow and Fort Peck Agencies, Montana. In 1955 he moved to the Klamath Agency as administrative officer and the following year was appointed superintendent.

Since activities of the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Klamath Agency have been reduced substantially as a result of the termination program, the Bureau does not plan to name a successor as superintendent. After Mr. Zoller's transfer, the officer in charge will be Earle Wilcox, sales manager, who has his office in Klamath Falls.

Reappointment of Floyd E. Maytubby as Governor of the Chickasaw Indians of Oklahoma for a two-year term beginning October 18, was announced today by Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst.

Mr. Maytubby has served in the office continuously since 1939.

Under terms of the appointment he will receive $250 a month from tribal funds for expenses.

The appointment was made under authority of a 1906 act of Congress o

The Department of the Interior announced today the award of a $252,990.00 contract for the improvement of the water and sewer systems at White River Agency, White River, Arizona.

The improvements will benefit Indian homes on the Fort Apache Reservation as well as the Agency headquarters of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The contract provides for approximately 9-miles of 8-inch water line, 24 new fire hydrants, a new sewage treatment plant, one-half mile of sewer line and three-quarters of a mile of earth dike.

The successful bidder was Twin Butte Contractors, Inc., of Tempe, Arizona. Fourteen higher bids, ranging from $268,000.00 to $582,424.00 were received.

Appointment of Dale M. Baldwin as Superintendent of the Fort Peck Indian Agency, Poplar, Montana, succeeding David Paul Weston, was announced today by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior.

Mr. Baldwin has been with the Bureau since 1949 and for the past two years has served as program officer in the Washington office. Mr. Weston has been at Fort Peck since 1957 and is transferring to the Washington office as program officer. Both moves will be effective November 14.

A native of New Castle, Pennsylvania, Mr. Baldwin graduated from Oregon State College in 1949 and entered on duty immediately thereafter with the Indian Bureau as a soil conservationist at the Colville Agency, Nespelem, Washington. Two years later he moved to the Umatilla Agency in Oregon and subsequently served at the Fort Hall Agency in Idaho and the Riverside sub-Agency in California. He had three years of service with the Army during World War II and attained the rank of captain.

Mr. Weston joined the Bureau in 1946 as a soil conservationist at the former Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency in Oklahoma. In 1947 he transferred to the Winnebago Agency in Nebraska and later served at the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota and the Area Office in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He holds both a bachelor's and a master's degree from the Oklahoma A &M College. He had five years of service with the Army in World War II and achieved a captaincy.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Elmer F. Bennett today announced he has signed an order transferring to the Navajo Indian Tribe approximately 52,000 acres of public land in the McCracken Mesa area of Utah.

He said the transfer substantially completes a land exchange agreement under which the Navajo people receive additional acreage in Utah's “Four Corners” area in compensation for lands they surrendered to permit construction of Glen Canyon Dam, key feature of the billion-dollar Upper Colorado River Storage Project.

General terms of the exchange were spelled out by Congress in the Act of September 2, 1958 (72 Stat. 1686). The exchange does not include mineral rights.

The Acting Secretary said he has simultaneously rejected a tribal protest against permitting the State to select other public domain lands for several sections of State lands included in the acreage transferred to the Indians. The tribe had argued the State was not entitled to alternate lands, but Mr. Bennett upheld the State's right to selections in lieu of those transferred. The State has already selected other public domain lands, he said.

Acting Secretary Bennett also said he has directed the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Reclamation to proceed expeditiously in compensating the present range users for their investments and loss of grazing privileges.

The McCracken Mesa area, used primarily for grazing, will extend the Navajo Reservation's northern boundary.

The transfer agreement represents a compromise agreed on in negotiations between the Department and the Tribe. Acting Secretary Bennett said the transfer includes more than 20 water developments and range improvements. Valid existing mining claims will continue to be recognized, he added.

The boundary adjustment was accomplished with the least possible disruption of present grazing operations, Mr. Bennett said. He explained that tribal negotiators, who originally sought a boundary revision that would have left islands of public land inside the reservation, compromised on a more compact grouping. At the same time, the needs of the tribe were taken into full account, he said.

The area transferred by the land order extends about 12 miles north of the San Juan River, is about 10 miles east of Bluff, Utah, and is roughly bounded by Recapture and Montezuma Creeks.

A complete description of the affected lands and terms of the transfer will be published in the Federal Register.