Past News Items

A new set of grazing regulations for the huge Navajo Indian Reservation of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, providing for greater Indian participation in administration and enforcement, was announced today by Acting Secretary of the Interior Clarence A. Davis.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons announced today that he has instructed the Indian Bureau’s area office at Billings, Montana, to withhold approval of additional sales of restricted Indian lands on the Crow Reservation in Montana that violate limitations imposed by the Act of June 4, 1920 (41 Stat. 751).

The Department of the Interior today announced approval of a coal mining and electric power development lease by Utah Construction Company, San Francisco, Calif., embracing some 24,000 acres on the Navajo Indian Reservation just south of Fruitland, New Mexico.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst today urged congressional enactment of legislation to authorize extension of the irrigation distribution system of the Coachella Valley County Water District of Riverside County, California, to about 10,000 acres of Indian land on the Augustine, Cabazon and Torres-Martinez Reservations.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced the Bureau of Indian Affairs has awarded contracts totaling $51,582 to furnish transformers, substation equipment and steel framework for a substation at the Portneuf pumping station of the Michaud Irrigation Division near Pocatello, Idaho.

The contracts were for $31,187 to the R. E. Uptegraff Manufacturing Company, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and for $20,395 to Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Portland, Oregon.

The Uptegraff and Westinghouse combination bid compares with the next lower acceptable bid of $60,300.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced the awarding of a $73,948 contract to the Ruud Construction Company, Spokane, Washington, for the construction of seven bridges on the Colville Indian reservation in central Washington.

The bridges are part of a construction program for the summer of 1957 which will provide better farm-to-market and school bus and mail route roads on the reservation.

Award of a $40,900 contract for construction of 20 deep-pit-type circular charcos (earthen stock water tanks) in the Sells and Gu Achi Districts of the Papago Indian Reservation in southern Arizona to L. P. McCrite & Son, Gilbert, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The McCrite bid was the lowest of 18 bids received. The others ranged from $41,600 to $193,700.

Award of a $216,700 contract to Fairbanks Morse and Company of Portland, Oregon, for irrigation pumps for the Michaud Unit of the Fort Hall, (Idaho) Indian Irrigation Project was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton.

The project is planned for completion in 1962 at an estimated total cost of $5,500,000.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Elmer F. Bennett today announced the Code of Federal Regulations has been amended to guarantee that Indian tribes will receive adequate offers for mineral leases on their lands.

The amendment provides greater uniformity in regulating the leasing of Indian lands for the mining of minerals other than oil and gas. It also furnishes a safeguard patterned after that which applies to oil and gas leases. The latter are required by law to be advertised, not negotiated.

Award of a $78,415.84 contract for construction of 2.899 miles of road on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The route will connect the Indian community of Hays with the new State Federal-Aid highway extending from the Fort Belknap Agency south to a new crossing of the Missouri River. The new State road by-passes the town of Hays and the construction of the Indian Bureau section will permit access for the community to the State highway.