Tag: Bureau of Reclamation

Nevada Indian reservations to grow under Reid bills

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has introduced a bill that would expand the 75,000-acre Moapa Band of Paiutes reservation outside Las Vegas by more than 26,000 acres. (Las Vegas Review-Journal file)
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has introduced a bill that would expand the 75,000-acre Moapa Band of Paiutes reservation outside Las Vegas by more than 26,000 acres. (Las Vegas Review-Journal file)

By Steve Tetreault and Henry Brean, Las Vegas Review-Journal

WASHINGTON – Two bills introduced Tuesday in the U.S. Senate would grant more than 26,000 acres of federal land to the Moapa Band of Paiutes outside Las Vegas and expand reservations of seven Northern Nevada Indian tribes.

One of the bills by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., would expand the 75,000-acre Paiute reservation by about a quarter by putting into trust 26,565 acres currently controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation. The Moapa tribe consists of 329 people, 200 of whom live on the reservation 30 miles north of Las Vegas.

The second bill would grant almost 93,000 acres to tribes in Humboldt, Elko and Washoe counties, and to the Pyramid Lake Paiutes, whose reservation includes land in Washoe, Storey and Lyon counties.

“Land is lifeblood to Native Americans, and this bill provides space for housing, economic development, traditional uses and cultural protection,” Reid said in a statement.“I take the many obligations that the United States has to tribal nations seriously.”

Reid has a long relationship with Nevada tribes, and has helped them settle land and water disputes over the years. He is also trying to pressure Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder to changing the team name considered racist and offensive by many American Indians. On Monday, Reid rejected team president Bruce Allen’s invitation to attend a game this fall. Allen said he hoped the experience would persuade the Nevada senator the team name is an expression of “solidarity” with Native Americans.

ECONOMIC FACTORS

Moapa Paiute tribal chairwoman Aletha Tom said Tuesday the additional land “means a great deal.”

“It’s a good idea for our tribe, for our cultural preservation and economic development,” she said.

In recent years, the Moapa Band of Paiutes has pursued development of renewable energy on its land, moving to fulfill a Reid ambition to make Nevada a major player in solar and wind energy generation.

In May, federal officials cleared the way for a new 200-megawatt photo-voltaic array to be built on tribal land with the backing of NV Energy. The facility on 850 acres is expected to generate enough electricity for about 60,000 homes.

In March, the tribe broke ground on a 250-megawatt plant billed as the first utility-scale solar project approved on tribal land. The project could generate electricity to feed 93,000 homes by the end of 2015. The City of Los Angeles has agreed to buy power from the 1,000-acre array for 25 years under a deal worth about $1.6 billion.

Tom said the project is on land the tribe obtained in 1980, when the reservation was last expanded. If Reid’s legislation is successful, the tribe will pursue solar power development on its new land as well, she said.

GARY THOMPSON/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL LOCAL Darren Daboda, chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiute, appears at the Southern Nevada Health District board meeting to voice the tribe's concerns about the waste landfill expansion at Reid Gardner power plant proposed by Nevada Energy. 10-28-10
GARY THOMPSON/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL LOCAL Darren Daboda, chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiute, appears at the Southern Nevada Health District board meeting to voice the tribe’s concerns about the waste landfill expansion at Reid Gardner power plant proposed by Nevada Energy. 10-28-10

In the 1870s, the Moapa Paiute reservation spread over two and a half million acres, including much of what today is Moapa Valley, Bunkerville, Logandale, Glendale, Overton and Gold Butte. But most of it was stripped away by Congress.

In 1980 President Jimmy Carter restored 75,000 acres, roughly 117 square miles.

In recent years, Reid has publicly sided with the tribe in its fight against NV Energy over an aging coal-burning power plant next to the reservation. Tribe members blame smoke and blowing dust from the Reid Gardner Generating Station for making them sick and polluting their land. In 2012, Reid described the plant as a “dirty relic” and called on NV Energy to close it.

The utility responded last year by announcing plans to shut down three of the four units at the 50-year-old power plant by the end of this year and shutter it completely in 2017.

Barbara Boyle of the Sierra Club helped the tribe fight the power plant. She said the reservation expansion should help both the tribe and the environment.

“After working with them on this fight, I believe that transferring more of their ancestral lands back to the Moapa Band is just, and will ensure that the land benefits the environment as well as the health of the people and their economy,” Boyle said in a statement from the national conservation group.

Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., whose district includes the Moapa Paiute reservation, said he supports the expansion.

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., is cosponsor of the bill benefiting Northern Nevada tribes, which he sees as a path to economic opportunity for them. But he is still studying the Moapa Paiute bill and seeking input from the tribe, according to spokeswoman Chandler Smith.

OTHER RESERVATION LAND

The second Reid bill introduced Tuesday:

— Conveys 373 acres of BLM land to be held in trust for the Elko band of the Te-Moak Tribe of the Western Shoshone Indians.

— Grants 19,094 acres of BLM land to be held in trust for the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe.

— Transfers 82 acres of Forest Service land to be held in trust for the Duck Valley Shoshone Paiute Tribes.

— Conveys 941 acres of BLM land to be held in trust for the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe.

— Gives 13,434 acres of BLM land to be held in trust for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony.

— Conveys 30,669 acres of BLM land to be held in trust for the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.

— Releases the Red Spring Wilderness Study Area and conveys 28,162 acres of BLM land, including the released land, for the South Fork Band Council.

The bill also includes 275 acres for the city of Elko for a motocross park.

Missing money: Feds halt funding for $361M reservation pipeline

30 April 2013

MATT VOLZ, Associated Press

 

• The irregularities are among several alleged corruption issues on the Rocky Boy’s reservation in northern Montana, said Kenneth Blatt St. Marks, a former tribal chairman.

BOX ELDER, Mont. (AP) – Federal officials temporarily stopped funding a $361 million water pipeline for a Native American reservation in Montana after learning that millions of project dollars were missing and a Chippewa Cree leader in charge of the project steered federal dollars to a company he owns.

The tribe has since replaced the missing money, but federal funding for the pipeline won’t resume until tribal leaders show they have permanently fixed the problems, Bureau of Reclamation regional director Michael J. Ryan said.

“While we commend the tribe for restoring the funds soon after the shortage and for self-reporting the issue, this reallocation of funds without consultation is a serious non-compliance matter with potentially long-lasting implications,” Ryan said in a March 18 letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Pipeline funding is controlled by the Bureau of Reclamation, which is part of the Interior Department. Bureau spokesman Tyler Johnson confirmed that the agency’s inspector general is conducting an investigation, but Johnson declined to provide details.

The irregularities are among several alleged corruption issues on the Rocky Boy’s reservation in northern Montana, said Kenneth Blatt St. Marks, a former tribal chairman. Marks said he reported the missing pipeline funds to the Bureau of Reclamation and that he is cooperating with the inspector general and with federal prosecutors in an investigation into alleged corruption on the reservation.

“There’s millions and millions and millions of dollars missing here,” claimed St. Marks, whom Ryan also identified as having a potential conflict of interest in the pipeline project. “This reservation is upside down.”

Calls to tribal officials were referred to attorney Dan Belcourt, who said he was not authorized by acting tribal chairman Richard Morsette to comment on the pipeline project or St. Marks’ allegations. Belcourt released a brief statement Saturday on behalf of tribal leaders that said they are “actively working with BOR on the issues raised in that letter.”

“The tribe and BOR share a common goal of seeing the Rocky Boy’s/North Central Montana Regional Water System project through to completion,” the statement said.

Congress approved the project in 2002 to bring reliable drinking water to the poverty-stricken reservation in the shadow of Montana’s Bear Paw mountains. Construction began in 2006, and when it is completed, the pipeline will run about 50 miles from Lake Elwell, serving as many as 30,000 people on and off the reservation.

Congress originally estimated the project’s cost at $228 million. That has since risen to $361 million due to inflation and rising costs.

It was unclear what effect a funding delay would have on constructing the pipeline, which is now 22 percent complete. As of last year, the bureau had allocated $96 million in addition to $10 million allocated by Congress.

St. Marks said that, as then-tribal chairman, he discovered at a Dec. 31 meeting with tribal leaders that $3.5 million was missing from Chippewa Cree bank accounts for the water project. Johnson declined to confirm the amount missing, saying it was part of the investigation.

No one could explain where the money went, St. Marks said. The meeting was held at the Chippewa Cree Construction Corp., the company that heads the project.

St. Marks reported the missing funds to the Bureau of Reclamation. In January, the Chippewa Cree Business Committee – the tribe’s governing council – replaced the money with cash from other tribal enterprises, he said.

It still is not clear what happened to the missing money.

Tony Belcourt is CEO of the construction company and head of the pipeline project. Belcourt also co-owns MT Waterworks, a company formed in 2010 that was awarded a $633,000 contract by the tribal construction corporation he heads to supply pipe for the project.

St. Marks said he fired Belcourt as the construction corporation’s CEO after the Bureau of Reclamation learned of that conflict of interest. But the eight other members of the ruling Chippewa Cree Business Committee reinstated Belcourt while St. Marks was on a trip to Washington, D.C.

That reinstatement, and St. Marks’ ownership in another company that was awarded a separate $1.9 million contract for the pipeline, prompted Ryan in his letter to tell the tribe to correct the ethics violations.

“We request that the tribe take immediate corrective action to remedy these apparent conflicts of interest,” Ryan wrote. He did not elaborate on what action the tribe had to take.

Belcourt, a former state legislator, declined to comment Friday and referred questions to his cousin, tribal attorney Dan Belcourt, who said he was not authorized to comment.

St. Marks was the owner of Arrow Enterprises, a private construction company that was awarded the $1.9 million contract before he became the tribe’s chairman. St. Marks said he turned over the company to his wife to end any conflict of interest.

But Johnson, of the Bureau of Reclamation, said the federal agency has not accepted that arrangement and the agency is requesting action to resolve the conflict.

In his letter, Ryan said the Chippewa Cree’s accounting of project funds was not accurate and lacked supporting data such as bank statements, balance sheets and expense statements. Johnson said Friday that the tribe has submitted additional financial information and corrected its accounting.

Still, Ryan gave the tribe until April 29 to resolve the rest of the problems and avoid more funding delays.

St. Marks became tribal chairman in November but was impeached in March by the business committee, which leveled seven charges against him ranging from inappropriate sexual comments to an employee to trading in two tribal vehicles so he could buy a sport-utility vehicle for personal use.

St. Marks denied the charges. He claimed he was impeached for cooperating with the federal investigation and for asking questions about the finances of some of the tribe’s biggest enterprises: its casino, health clinic and an online lender.