Past News Items

A significant first step toward the resolution of Indian water-rights claims in New Mexico will be taken Monday, April 6, in Albuquerque, N.M., when Chief U.S. District Court Judge John E. Conway signs an order that finally adjudicates the water rights of the Jicarilla Apache Tribe in the Rio Chama Basin in northern New Mexico. The order, which is a Partial Final Judgment and Decree, will determine the tribe's water rights on the east side of its reservation. The signing will take place in the U.S. District Court, 500 Gold SW, 13 floor east courtroom, at 1:30 p.m.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has already assigned staff to prepare plans that will provide 5,000 additional school seats for Indian and Eskimo pupils and correct unsafe and obsolete Federal Indian school facilities in line with yesterday’s mandate from President Kennedy, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

Swift action was possible, Secretary Udall added, because the Bureau has for some time been formulating long-range plans for expanding and modernizing its nationwide school system for Indian youngsters.

Ada E. Deer, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs announced today that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the United States Geological Survey have entered into a Memorandum of Agreement to provide support for science and environmental education at the elementary and secondary levels in the BIA school system.

The MOA was signed last week by Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Ada E. Deer mid Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, Patricia Beneke and was officially announced at the 27th., Annual National Indian Education Association convention held in Rapid City this week.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash today announced the completion of an agreement between the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, and a Pelham, N.Y., electronics company which will lead to the establishment of I a new branch plant providing jobs for at least 200 workers on the Laguna Indian Pueblo west of Albuquerque, N. Mex.

The firm involved is Burnell & Co., Inc., which manufactures electronic filters and related components.

Ada E. Deer, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs announced today that a Notice of Advanced Rule Making was published in the Federal Register on May 10, 1996. This publication seeks comments on the Department's authority under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) to promulgate "procedures" to authorize Class ill gaming on Indian lands when a sate raises an Eleventh Amendment defense to an action brought against it in federal court by an Indian tribe.

High bonus bids totaling nearly one and a third million dollars for oil and gas leases on Indian-owned lands of the Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana were announced today by the Department of the Interior.

At an opening of bids on January 17 at Poplar, Mont., offers were received for leases on 149 tracts covering approximately 32,500 acres. For 97 tracts comprising 24,046 acres owned by individual tribal members the high bonus bids totaled $943,771. For 52 tracts of tribally owned land with a combined area of 8,458 acres, the high bonus offerings added up to $375,310.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Ada E. Deer on June 23 signed a preliminary decision that proposes extending Federal acknowledgment to the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Bradley, MI. Assistant Secretary Deer said the petitioner meets all seven of the required criteria in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 25, Section 83. 7, as modified by Section 83.8, and therefore qualifies for a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

Award of a $1,543,500 contract for the construction of school facilities that will provide for 150 additional students at Lukachukai, Arizona on the Navajo Indian Reservation was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan and Secretary of Agriculture Edward Madigan today announced approval of a historic agreement in principle to resolve a century-old land dispute between the Navajo and Hopi Indian tribes in Arizona. "For the first time we have an agreement in principle between the two tribes," Lujan said. "We cannot pass up this Once-in-a-century opportunity to settle this bitter dispute." The agreement in principle, approved earlier this week by the Hopi and Navajo tribal councils, was achieved after 17 months of intense negotiations conducted by U.S.

Indian tribes have found that projects to enhance natural beauty get more results than meet the eye, according to the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Clean-up campaigns have prevented accidents and fires.

Efforts to stop unsightly erosion and to start landscaping programs have resulted in better soil conservation.

But, best of all, "face lifting" of the reservations has helped the tribes' tourist business and lifted the morale of tribal members.