Past News Items

The Department of the Interior announced today that it has submitted to Congress a proposal for legislation exempting from Federal and State income tax the payments of more than $26,000,000 which the Government has made to four Pacific Northwest Indian tribes to compensate them for the loss of their fishing rights at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River.

The tribes involved are the Yakima of Washington, the Warm Springs and Umatilla of Oregon, and the Nez Perce of Idaho.

Award of three contracts totaling $171,820.40 for road construction work in Indian areas of Oklahoma was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

All three projects involve a stabilized asphalt base and single bituminous surfacing on grade and drainage completed sometime ago. All of the roads run through heavily populated Indian areas and are school-bus and mail-service routes.

Legislation that would facilitate the transfer of surplus Federal Indian school properties to local public school districts, has been recommended to Congress, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Such transfers are now possible under a law enacted in 1953 but are limited to 20 acres in anyone conveyance. Since this limitation has interfered with some contemplated transfers and has seemingly served no useful purpose, the Department is proposing that it be deleted.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons today strongly urged the Army Corps of Engineers to take action "at the earliest possible date” to eliminate a flood threat to tribally developed pasturelands on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida.

The Department of the Interior favors enactment of legislation initiated by the Choctaw Indian Tribe of Oklahoma which provides for disposition of the Tribe’s lands and funds and for eventual termination of its special relations with the Federal Government, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.

In reporting to Congress on H. R. 2722, Mr. Ernst emphasized that the bill was introduced in Congress at the request of tribal officials.

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.

Award of a $176,168 contract to rehabilitate approximately 1,200 acres of land on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in northern Nevada, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract calls for re-leveling of the land and the construction of canals, laterals and water control structures. The work to be done is part of an over-all program to develop available resources on the Duck Valley Reservation for use by Indian families.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it has taken joint action with the Department of Agriculture in designating 11 units of the Klamath Indian Forest in Oregon to be offered for sale over & period of about 16 months starting sometime after April 1.

The two Departments have also agreed upon specifications and minimum require9nts for sustained-yield management of the units which must be followed by purchasers under provisions of the Klamath Termination Act of 1954, as amended.

Because of fire safety hazards involved in student dormitories, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is taking action immediately to close its 500-pupil school at Fort Defiance, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Arrangements will be made so that all of the presently enrolled students can finish the current term either by transferring to other reservation schools immediately, or by taking summer school instruction. Plans are also being made to place all of them in other school facilities for the new term which starts next fall.

Twenty-nine proposals to lease lands on the Dania Indian Reservation in south Florida for commercial or industrial development have been received by the Seminole tribal organization since the availability of the lands for leasing was publicly announced last August, the Department of the Interior reported today.