Past News Items

Patricia S. Keyes, a regional representative for the Department of Transportation since 1981, has been appointed as field operations officer by Interior Assistant Secretary Ross Swimmer to serve on his staff as a coordinator and liaison with several of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) 12 area offices. She will also be responsible for relations with public and governmental organizations within those areas.

Completion of the final membership roll of the Peoria Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, following the disposition of all appeals, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The preliminary membership roll, published in the Federal Register May 9, 1957, included 624 individuals. The net result of additions and subtractions made as a consequence of appeals to the Secretary of the Interior is a final roll of 640.

Under a 1956 congressional law, Federal trusteeship of the Peoria property is to be ended by next August 2.

The Minerals Management Service (MMS has extended the deadline to five days for oil and gas operators to report the startup of production from new wells or wells recompleted in new intervals on Federal and Indian lands.

MMS Director Harold E. Doley, Jr., said the previous one-day deadline for reporting the startup of production to district supervisors was impractical.

"To avoid penalties, operators felt compelled to hand-deliver written notifications, sometimes at great expense," Doley said.

Under a reappraisal ordered by Congress, lands belonging to the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon have now been appraised as having a realization value of $90, 791,123, the Department of the Interior announced today.

The new appraisal total figures out to about $44,000 for each of the 1,659 withdrawing tribal members, and also includes realization values of land that will be administered for the non-withdrawing members.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced that it is publishing in the Federal Register, April 21, 1982, proposed regulations to govern the preparation of a membership roll of the Pribilof Islands Aleut Communities of St. Paul and St. George. The roll to be prepared will serve as a basis for a per capita distribution of judgment funds awarded to the communities by the U. S. Court of Claims.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced the reappointment of Floyd E. Maytubby, Oklahoma City, as Governor of the Chickasaw Indian Tribe and the appointment of Waldo E McIntosh of Tulsa as Principal Chief of the Oklahoma Creek Indian Tribe.

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 Minerals Management Service, created today by Interior Secretary James Watt to ensure the proper and full collection of royalties from Federal and Indian leases, will place renewed emphasis upon efforts to stem royalty fraud and theft in a system producing $5 billion in annual collections.

The basis of the new Service is the Conservation Division of the U.S. Geological Survey, which is being reassigned to report directly to the Under Secretary and an executive group within the Office of the Secretary.

The Department of the Interior favors proposed legislation to provide that judgment funds on claims against the United States awarded to any of the constituent Indian tribes on the Colville Reservation in Washington shall be deposited in the United States Treasury to the credit of the confederated tribal group on the reservation, Assistant Secretary John A. Carver, Jr., announced today.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs William E. Hallett has named Jose "Abe" Zuni acting director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Juneau, Alaska area office. His appointment is effective immediately.

Zuni, a member of the Isleta Pueblo, is a 31-year veteran in the BIA. Since September of 1979 he has been the Bureau's Management Improvement Liaison Officer, stationed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has previously served as Director of the Office of Administration in Washington, D. C. and held other top management positions in the Bureau.

Thomas H. St. Clair, industrial development specialist with the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Portland, Oregon, has been appointed superintendent of the Papago Indian Agency, Sells, Ariz., the Department of the Interior announced today.

The new superintendent will take office July 23. He succeeds Harry W. Gilmore who has been in charge at Papago since 1955 and now moves into a position as program officer in the Indian Bureau's area office at Phoenix.