Past News Items

Two major construction projects on Indian reservations are milestones in Indian American progress -- one emphasizing economic potential and the other human potential -- Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett said.

He pointed to the recent ground-breaking ceremony for a $1.5 million Bottle Hollow Motel-complex on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah and completion of the $8.5 million Bureau of Indian Affairs residential school at Many Farms, Ariz., on the Navajo Reservation.

The Department of the Interior provided its determination to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the bones of the 9,000 year-old human skeletal remains known as Kennewick Man be given to the five Indian tribes that have collectively claimed him as their ancient ancestor. The decision was announced in a letter from Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera and represents the culmination of a thorough process of scientific examinations and investigations. The U.S.

The transfer of three Indian Agency superintendents in Arizona has been announced by Robert L. Bennett, Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Homer M. Gilliland, Superintendent at the Co1brado River Reservation, has been named Superintendent at the Hopi Reservation. He replaces Clyde W. Pensoneau who is retiring from Federal service.

Succeeding Gilliland at Colorado River will be John H. Artichoker, Jr., now Superintendent of the Papago Reservation. Artichoker will be succeeded by Joseph M. Lucero, now an administrative manager and acting superintendent at the Hopi Agency.

Surrounded by more than 35 Cowlitz Indians from the State of Washington, Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Kevin Gover today signed the final determination to federally acknowledge their tribe. With 1,482 members, the tribe is located in southwestern Washington state. Historically its villages ranged a distance of 60 miles from the source to the mouth of the Cowlitz River, with an important center at the well-known landmark of the Cowlitz Indian Mission.

Professional Indian artists and artisans have received 12 first place awards and student Indian artists and craftsmen nine first place awards plus other honors, in the 1967 Biennial Exhibition of American Indian Arts and Crafts. The exhibition is sponsored by the Center for Arts of Indian America, a non-profit organization.

The exhibition is open to the public through December 15 at the Department of the Interior Art Gallery, Interior Building, 18th and C Streets, N. W., Washington, D.C.

In an effort to close solid waste dumps located on tribal lands and help tribes develop alternative solid waste management options, the National Tribal Solid Waste Interagency Workgroup is seeking proposals from tribes for solid waste projects. The workgroup, representing 8 federal agencies, provides funding for tribes to assist with solid waste management and closing open dumps. There are over 1,100 open dumps on Tribal lands in the United States. The deadline for submitting a pre-proposal is November 19, 1999, with the final proposal due February 25, 2000.

William B. Benge, Chief of the Branch of Law and Order, Bureau of Indian Affairs, has been given a temporary assignment as Special Liaison Representative to the Seneca Indian Tribe of Western New York, Commissioner Robert L. Bennett announced today.

Bennett said that Benge's appointment is effective immediately and is expected to last only a few months while a successor is being chosen for Sidney M. Carney, who has been named BIA Area Director for the Anadarko (Okla.) Area.

The Department of the Interior will publish final regulations to deal with Indian gaming compact negotiations between States and Tribes when Tribes have exhausted other federal judicial remedies. A final rule has been sent to the Federal Register for publication. The new regulation will only apply in cases where Tribes and States have been unable to voluntarily negotiate Class III gaming compacts and where States otherwise allow Class III gaming activities and when States assert immunity from lawsuits to resolve the dispute.

Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall today congratulated the Zuni Indian Tribe of New Mexico for their initiative in passing one of the first Indian Sales Taxes collected primarily from Indians.

In placing a one percent tax upon themselves, Udall said, in a letter to Zuni Tribal Governor Robert E. Lewis, the Zuni Tribe has realized "that its local government cannot be a potent force for improvement unless it is able to carry its fair share of needed educational, industrial, social, health and community development program costs."

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Ada E. Deer today announced that the Bureau of lndian Affairs will assume the operations of law enforcement for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma effective immediately for a period of approximately two months. This period will allow the Nation to resolve internal difficulties which have recently developed.