Past News Items

The Department of the Interior and the State of California today announced all fishing for fall chinook salmon and steelhead trout will be closed at midnight Sunday, August 27 in the Klamath River below the Highway 101 bridge, and severely curtailed above the bridge.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Thursday, November 20, U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Interior Mike Connor will host a news media teleconference to discuss the year-to-date accomplishments and next schedule for the continued implementation of the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program).

The Buy-Back Program implements the land consolidation component of the Cobell Settlement, which provided $1.9 billion to purchase fractional interests in trust or restricted land from willing sellers at fair market value within a 10-year period.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced that a partial per capita payment of judgment funds awarded to the Mississippi Sioux Indians by the Indian Claims Commission will be made before the end of April. The award was for land taken in Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota in the early 1800's.

The final environmental impact statement for the Vekol Hills Project, a proposed open pit copper and molybdenum mine on the Papago Indian Reservation in Pinal, County, Arizona, has been completed, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

Notice of the availability of the EIS is being published in the Federal Register.

The project calls for mining and related activities to be conducted under the terms of mineral and surface leases granted by the Papago Tribe, if approved by the Secretary of the Interior.

WASHINGTON – The Department of the Interior today announced that purchase offers have been sent to more than 4,000 individual landowners with fractional interests at the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona and the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana. These offers, totaling nearly $100 million, will give eligible landowners with interests in tribal priority tracts the opportunity to voluntarily sell their land to be held in trust for each tribe.

Appointment of Leon V, Langan, Gallup, N. Mex., and Thomas M. Heid, Albuquerque, N. Mex., as assistants to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and of Carl Beck, Springerville, Ariz., as the Commissioner 1s field representative was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay. They have been serving as consultants.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has published a study of Indian tribal courts done by the National American Indian Court Judges Association.

The 200-page book, Indian Courts and the Future, provides basic information about reservation judicial systems, considers the role of the courts under the current policy of Indian self-determination and discusses future needs.

WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services will offer the next in its series of training sessions for tribal court personnel on July 22-25, 2013, in Reno, Nev., with cases focusing on illegal narcotics. Because of a high level of interest, the Office of Justice Services (OJS) is continuing to provide legal training it successfully held in 2012 to new groups of tribal court prosecutors, defenders and judges to improve their trial advocacy skills.

Legislation is being drafted in the Bureau of Indian Affairs which will authorize transfer to the State of Texas complete trust responsibility over the affairs of the 410 Alabama-Coushatta Indians living on an approximately 4,000-acre reservation in Polk County, Texas, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay announced today.

Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard announced today the appointment of Irene Sparks Rowan as his Special Assistant for Alaskan Affairs.

Rowan, an-enrolled Alaska Native, is President of Kish Tu, Inc., an Alaska-based research and consulting firm. She is also the former elected Chairperson and President of Klukwan, Inc., her Alaska Native village corporation.