Past News Items

Ross Swimmer, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, has reassigned Wilson Barber, Jr., currently Navajo area director in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) office at Window Rock, Arizona, and James H. Stevens, currently BIA area office director in Phoenix. Barber will be moving to Phoenix and Stevens will take over the area director's job in Window Rock.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Ross Swimmer has informed Indian tribal leaders that almost $3 million could be saved over a five year period by using a private contractor for services to strengthen internal management and administration of more than $1.8 billion in Indian trust funds. The $3 million figure was arrived at in cost comparisons between the proposal of a selected bidder and an in-house Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) proposal.

The Department of the Interior announced today the opening of competitive bidding to contract for services to strengthen internal management and administration of more than $1.8 billion of Indian trust funds. Ross Swimmer, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, said the consultation process outlined in an April 15, 1987, Federal Register notice has been completed and it is time to move on to the competitive bidding to procure collection, accounting, advisory investment services and custodial services for funds held in trust for Indian tribes, individuals and others.

Ross Swimmer, Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, today announced the appointment of Nancy Garrett as Director of the Office of Administration in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Garrett, a member of the Senior Executive Service (SES) since 1978, currently serves as Deputy-Comptroller in BIA's Office of Indian Education Programs. Her new appointment is effective December 22.

A nearly $40,000 Bureau of Indian Affairs grant to the Lummi Indian Business Council in Bellingham, Washington, has translated into a $2.5 million a year fishermen's corporation that provides jobs for tribal members and revenues for tribal coffers.

The tribally-chartered corporation, formed in July, markets the catches of 12 Indian fishing operations to buyers in Japan, France, Belgium and the United States. The results are impressive:

A negotiated agreement for reclamation of the Jackpile Mine in New Mexico between the Pueblo of Laguna and Anaconda Minerals Company, former operators of the nation's largest open-pit uranium mine, was signed today by the Denver based company and approved by the Department of the Interior. The Laguna tribal council has already approved the agreement and will formally sign it in ceremonies in Albuquerque December 18. Anaconda has agreed to pay the Laguna tribe $43.6 million to reclaim the more than 2,600 acres of land disturbed by the company during a 30-year mining operation.

Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Ross Swimmer today announced the appointment of Joe C. Christie as actin~ director of the new Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse. Christie, Superintendent of the Northern California Agency in Redding. California, since 1984, will assume the new post created in the Office of the Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs by P.L. 99-570, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 signed by President Reagan last month. He will begin his duties in Washington, December 2

The Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) announces the availability of its publication, Mineral Revenues: The 1985 Report on Receipts from Federal and Indian Leases.

The booklet reports on the 1985 activities of the MMS Royalty Management Program, including collection of $6.5 billion in bonuses, rents and royalties from Indian and federal {offshore and onshore) minerals 1eases.

The report also offers tables and statistics relating to the generation, distribution, and history of revenues obtained under th1s program.

A draft review of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) off-reservation boarding schools in Phoenix. Arizona and Riverside, California recommends closure of the Phoenix school at the end of the current school year.

The report also recommends consideration of a new facility to provide specialized treatment services within a residential setting in close proximity to the Arizona Indian communities for students with special needs. The report recommends that the Sherman school in Riverside continue operation for its students and those displaced by closure of the· Phoenix facility

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) announced today that it will relocate the office of assistant director of education to the Navajo Area Office in Gallup, N.K. Dr. Kenneth Ross, who oversees BIA education operations in the Southwest, will move from his Washington headquarters to Gallup November 4 The director of the BIA's nearly $300 million education program, Dr. Henrietta Whiteman, said the move is Reared toward bringing management closer to the people it serves.