OPA

The Department of the Interior today announced award of a $5,402,994 contract to build a two-mile tunnel near Aztec, N. Mex., first major work on the $135 million Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, which the Bureau of Reclamation is building for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Fenix &Scisson, Inc., of Tulsa, Okla., lowest of 16 bidders, was awarded the contract.

The Navajo Project contract marks the third new start in fiscal year 1964 on a western irrigation project. The others were the Bureau of Reclamation's San Juan-Chama Project and the Rio Grande Project recreational facilities, both also in New Mexico.

Commissioner of Reclamation Floyd E. Dominy said the Navajo tunnel bid invitation was the first of its type issued by Reclamation in which offers could be submitted on a "per-foot" basis. He explained that conditions favor use of a "mole," a giant horizontal power drill, for excavation. Rapid follow-up behind the mole with concrete tunnel lining may obviate use of structural-steel supports.

"In essence, the linear-foot option offered more flexibility for bidders, II Commissioner Dominy explained.” It permitted contractors to use their ingenuity in arriving at the lowest possible construction cost, while still meeting the Bureau's specifications."

The tunnel will extend from the Bureau of Reclamation's Navajo Dam--about 30 miles east of Farmington, N. Mex.--to Governador Canyon, approximately two miles south of Farmington. A system of tunnels, siphons, and canals will extend the system an additional 150 miles. These will be covered under future contracts.

The Department of the Interior has voiced its support of Federal legislation providing for relocation and reestablishment of the Papago Indian village of Si1 Murk, in southern Arizona, which will be displaced by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers' construction of Painted Rock Dam and Reservoir.

The village site comprises some 40 acres of land, with an additional 7.2 acres in use as a cemetery. Si1 Murk lies just outside the established boundaries of the Gila Bend Indian Reservation and has been occupied by members of the Papago Indian Tribe for over 100 years. It now sustains about 20 families.

In reporting favorably on pending legislation, the Department recommended that the bill provide for relocation and reestablishment of the village by the Department of the Interior, with project funds provided by the Department of the Army.

Under provisions of the bill, relocation and reestablishment would be handled in a manner assuring to the extent feasible that the economic, social, religious and community life of the Indians will be restored to a condition not less advantageous than that which they previously enjoyed. The action to be taken would include providing a suitable replacement site, relocating or protecting the cemetery, and establishing on the new site a church building, living quarters for the Indians, water wells, a water distribution system, sewerage facilities, roads, and such other buildings, facilities and structures as may be necessary.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, announced today that John O. Crow, Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau, has been named as one of 10 Federal employees to receive the Career Service Award presented by the National Civil Service League.

The awards, now in their 10th year, are given in recognition of outstanding competence in public service, and winners are chosen from the nomination of cabinet officers, heads of Federal agencies, and the D. C. Commissioners. The 1964 winners will receive their awards at the April 14 presentation dinner at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington, D. C. Members of the Cabinet, Congress, the various Federal agencies and the judiciary will join businessmen, members of the public, and government employees to honor this year's awardees.

Mr. Crow, a Cherokee Indian, receives his award for sustained superior service in the Bureau of Indian Affairs throughout a career that began 30 years ago.

He entered service with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1933 as a temporary clerk at the Fort Totten Indian Agency in North Dakota. Successive assignments took him, in 1935, to the Truxton Canyon Indian Agency at valentine, Arizona, where, in 1942, he was made superintendent of the agency; and to the superintendence’s of the Mescalero (Apache) Indian Agency in New Mexico, from 1946 to 1951; the Fort Apache Indian Agency, W1literiver, Arizona, from 1951 to 1955; and the Uintah-Ouray Agency at Fort Duchesne, Utah, from 1955 to 1957.

He came to the central offices of the Bureau in Washington, D. C., in 1957, as assistant to the Assistant Commissioner for Resources, and in 1960 he was made chief of the Bureau's Branch of Realty,

The Department of the Interior reports that the volume of timber cut from Indian lands in lq63 was the highest on record. Not included in the report was the volume cut on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin and the Klamath Reservation in Oregon, where Federal supervision ended in 1961.

The total cut under contract and paid permit was 640 million board-feet, 18 percent of which was cut by Indian operators. It provided about 6,000 man years of direct employment by the wood-using industries on or near the reservations, and an income of over $9, 950,000 for the Indian owners at an average stumpage rate of $15.55. This income value was exceeded only in the peak years of 1959 and 1960.

In addition to the volume cut under contract and paid permit, 124 million board-feet were cut for Indian free use at an estimated value of $460,000. The volume cut for 1964 is expected to rise substantially over the 1963 total because of higher allowable cuts on many of the reservations.

Transfer of Howard F. Johnson from the position of superintendent, Blackfeet Agency, Browning, Mont., to the comparable position at Osage Agency, Pawhuska, Okla., effective February 15, was announced today by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Johnson, superintendent of the Blackfeet Agency for the past five and a half years, succeeds Thomas H. Dodge, who recently retired. A successor for Johnson at Blackfeet Agency has not yet been selected.

A Federal employee with more than 27 years of service, Johnson began his career with the Department of Agriculture at Navajo Agency in 1935. Five years later he transferred to the Indian Bureau as a soil technologist at the same location and subsequently served as soil conservationist and agricultural extension agent before being appointed extension supervisor in 1951.

Mr. Johnson received a Bachelor of Science degree in the field of agronomy and soils from Colorado A. and M. College in 1935 and has done graduate work in the fields of education and mathematics.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has scheduled a conference of top field administrators of Indian reservations for June 16-18 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It will be the second such conference since 1938 and a sequel to one called by the Secretary in 1961.

In making the announcement today, Secretary Udall said:

"This conference promises to be one of the most significant government meetings on Indian affairs in many years. We shall have the opportunity to examine the problems of reservation Indians in relation to President Johnson's war on poverty and in the broad perspective of our striving toward the great society."

Secretary Udall will deliver the keynote address at the opening session of the Santa Fe meeting on June 16. The three day conference will be attended by more than 200 delegates and invited guests.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior John A. Carver, Jr., Martin Vigil, Chairman, All-Pueblo Council, and Philleo Nash, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, will also speak at the first day's session. Governor Jack M. Campbell of New Mexico and Mayor Pat Hollis of Santa Fe are among invited guests.

Invitations also have been extended to representatives of the President's Task Force on the War against Poverty, the Public Housing Administration, the Indian Health Division of the U. S. Public Health Service, the Area Redevelopment Administration, and other agencies. Indian tribal officials and leaders of the National Congress of American Indians, the Indian Rights Association, and the Association on American Indian Affairs are also expected to attend the opening session.

Discussions will focus on the role of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the national war on poverty, with specific reference to Indian reservation needs in industrial and commercial development, education and housing.

The opening meeting, scheduled for 10:00 a.m., Tuesday, June 16, will be held in the gymnasium of the Santa Fe Institute of American Indian Arts, a high school and vocational institute operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Tuesday session will be open to the press.

Secretary Udall has scheduled a press conference for 9:00 a.m., Tuesday, June 16, at the Institute.

Award of a $4,563,129 contract for the construction of school facilities that will provide for 768 additional students at Shonto, Arizona, was announced today by the Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

The contract calls for the construction of a 23-classroom school with a multipurpose room and an instructional materials centered three 256-pupil dormitories; a 1,200-pupil kitchen-dining hall; living accommodations for staff; and a storage, maintenance and fire protection building. The project also provides for the remodeling of the existing library into two beginners' classrooms and of the existing kitchen-dining hall into an activity room.

In addition to the building construction, a 150,000 gallon elevated water tank and extension of water supply system, sewage system and new lagoons, drives, walks and other site improvements are included in the contract.

The new construction will increase the present enrollment of 232 pupils to 1,000, and will add the seventh and eighth grades to the present grading system.

The successful bidder was Lembke Construction Co., Albuquerque, New Mexico. Seven higher bids were received ranging from $4,782,000 to $5,680,400.

The Department of the Interior has announced its support of proposed Federal legislation providing for distribution of a judgment fund of over $6 million recovered by the Pawnee Indian Tribe of Oklahoma.

The amount actually awarded the Tribe by the Indian Claims Commission and appropriated by Congress in May 1963, was $7,316,096.55. However, payment of attorneys' fees and expenses and other costs of litigation reduced the sum available for distribution to $6,439,088,88, including accrued interest.

Judgment was based on a claim by the Pawnee’s that they were inadequately compensated for lands in Kansas and Nebraska which they ceded to the United States from 1833 to 1893. The Pawnee Tribe in Oklahoma is the same tribe that ceded the lands to the Government during that period.

Proposed legislation submitted by the Department would permit the Pawnees, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, to make their own determination of how they want their judgment fund programmed. The Pawnee Business Council, governing body of the Tribe, is considering an approach that would distribute part of the money through a family plan program and deposit the remainder in the United States Treasury to draw interest. The interest would be used to finance tribal self-help measures, such as scholarship grants, industrial development, housing, employment assistance, and a loan program

Award of a $2,129,250 contract for the construction of elementary school facilities at Rough Rock, Arizona, on the Navajo Indian Reservation, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The scheduled construction, which will replace the obsolete existing temporary sheet metal building serving some 60 children, will provide an additional 260 Navajo children with needed school accommodations.

The proposed construction reflects the efforts of the Bureau of Indian Affairs 00 provide all Indian children with opportunities for schooling when public schools are inaccessible to them, or are unequipped to provide the special language instruction that permits Indians to keep pace with English-speaking schoolmates.

The contract calls for the construction of an 11-classroom school with a multipurpose room, instructional materials center and library; two 168-pupil dormitories, a 360-pupil kitchen-dining building; and living accommodations for staff.

In addition to the building construction, a 100,000 gallon elevated tank and water supply system, sewage system and lagoons, drives, walks and other site improvements are included in the contract. The successful bidder was Northeast Construction Company of West Virginia, headquartered in Tiffin, Ohio. Six higher bids were received, ranging from 2,280,122 to $2,634,600.

The Department of the Interior today announced award of a $2,131,000 contract to construct a dormitory facility which will enable 152 children from remote portions of Alaska to attend the State Regional High School built by the State of Alaska at Nome.

An agreement between the State of Alaska and Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs provided that the State would build the instructional facility and the Bureau would provide a dormitory. It is expected that later the state will add a second dormitory and expand the instructional space.

The dormitory facility being built under this contract will include sleeping and living accommodations for 152 students, kitchen and dining facilities, office space, staff quarters, garage and a pedestrian tunnel and stair tower to the State Regional High School building.

Norden Construction Company, Inc., and Associate, of Fairbanks, Alaska, was the successful bidder on the Nome dormitory contract. Other bids received range to $2,943,043.