A SUCCESSFUL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RECOVERY MODEL FOR TRIBES By Bob Juneau

A SUCCESSFUL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RECOVERY MODEL FOR TRIBES

                                                By Bob Juneau

Law Professor Ray Cross is an Indian lawyer who has won three Supreme Court Decisions for his tribes, the Three Affiliated Tribes-Mandan, Arickara, Hidatsa. That is impressive for any lawyer, but he has gone on to set the legal precedent of “Institutional Equity” meaning that all stakeholders, tribal, state, federal, are to be treated on an equal basis for settlement of claims. His tribes had “borne a disproportionate share of the social and economic costs of construction of Garrison Dam & reservoir on tribal homelands.” He stated, “The Indians had suffered devastating economic, cultural, and social losses due to the federal government taking their most productive agricultural lands.” It was then found that Congress had failed to justly compensate the Indians in 1949 for their losses arising from flooding their bottom lands along the Missouri River by Garrison Dam. Congress then appointed a ‘Joint Tribal Advisory Commission’ to look into the taking and to come up with a plan to make the Indians “whole” for their economic losses.

The Commission hired Dr. Ronald G. Cummings, a leading natural resource economist to do an assessment of the Indians economic losses He was instructed to use known and accepted valuation standards that required the Government to provide Indians with in-kind replacement of their taken lands, “lieu lands” now under 200 feet of water in Garrison Dam reservoir. Expert testimony by anthropologists also included the taking’s devastating effects on the social and economic life of the Indian people caused by loss of tribal property.  These Indians were successful cattle ranchers prior to the taking and one of the few self-reliant tribes in the nation. The other successful, economically self-reliant tribe was the Blackfeet Tribe of Indians by their cattle industry successful in 1893.

The Commission decided that destruction of these Indian lands could only be measured by the “capitalized values of the expected future incomes that would have been generated by the Indian’s lands had they not been taken.” Ray Cross got his tribes $149 million cash and a share of the revenues of Garrison Dam “forever” and “lieu lands” to replace the flooded tribal lands under Garrison Dam and restoration of the successful tribal cattle industry.  Restoration of the cattle ranching economy would seem to provide just compensation for a social and economic recovery plan. Mr. Cummings stated, “A mere cash payment for their losses would not be adequate to compensate the Indians because the Indians had a cultural, religious, and economic attachment to their homelands where their creation stories, sacred sites and cattle ranches were located. The white ranchers were content to move onto state lands and purchase lands with their Government Condemnation Payments provided by Congress for their losses in leaving the reservation.

Further, the tribes were required to come up their own plan for economic and social recovery of the Indian people in spending their claims money. The Three Affiliated tribes came up with an economic and social recovery plan that deposited the claims money and revenues from Garrison Dam into a Treasury Account on behalf of the tribes. The council would have access to the interest on the principal amount of the claims but would not be able to spend the claims money down to nothing, and be left broke in a few years. The Indians would be able to decide the best use of the distributed interest income for their economic and social recovery plan as a tribal people. The council would have to submit an economic recovery plan to the Secretary of the Interior to draw down money.      

Where is the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council Economic Recovery Plan?

The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council has resisted every attempt by tribal members to be included in the water compact settlement. Blackfeet allottees own one million acres and are the largest “stakeholders” in the water compact. The tribal council “settled” without considering losses by trust landowners and cattle ranchers who had their allotted lands stolen and cattle industry stolen by white cattlemen, Glacier and Pondera County, oil companies, Great Northern Railway, Swift & Armor Meat Trust, and Joe Sherburne.

The tribal council violated the “Institutional Equity” clause against Blackfeet landowners.

BIA patents-in-fee were issued to trust landowners as part of a racketeering scheme to rob the Indians causing loss of allotted grazing lands, cattle industry, water rights and economic opportunity “guaranteed” in the 1896 Agreement/Article Five.

Blackfeet cattle ranchers were self-reliant, successful in 1893 by their cattle industry, far more successful than Blackfeet ranchers today, who have no council support, no financing, no loans, no credit, and no grazing lands, leased to white men through third-party Blackfeet leasers, who sub-lease to white men for cash and cattle.

The tribal council is a complete failure in addressing future social & economic needs of the Blackfeet people; instead opting for a gob of money to continue to build the tribal welfare economy and tribal businesses that pay minimum wages to be profitable like the hotel/casino. Several businesses owned by tribal members have been taken by the tribal council monolith corporate giant “Sayeh” that was invented by the tribal council to usurp all economic opportunity. The hotel/casino fiasco has cost $9,000,000 for the casino/hotel/race track and has taken $9,000,000 from the pockets of tribal poor, offering a million to one chance of winning enough to get out of poverty. The tribal council  suppresses tribal member’s economic opportunities for cash for their high salaries and they use every tribal dollar and economic opportunity to build the council welfare empire.

The truth is they have no social and economic recovery plan for the tribal landowners and cattle ranchers except more minimum wage jobs in the hotel/casino. The council stonewalled every attempt by tribal members to offer any of their own plans to recover economically, especially Blackfeet cattle ranchers, the only successful business.

 Think of $9,000,000 invested in purchasing cattle for Blackfeet cattle ranchers, providing financial support, credit, loans, and markets for their cattle by building a beef processing plant facility to increase profits by 40% for cattle ranchers and provide high paying jobs for tribal members. Quality beef products, jobs, and increased incomes for trust landowners will solve our hunger problem for impoverished tribal members and solve the epidemic of juvenile diabetes among our children. Indian Health Service doctors told me the diabetes epidemic is caused by an inadequate diet. Our children are not getting enough nutrition to maintain their health. Ain’t that a damn shame on the tribal council’s greed for more money for themselves and “NO HARDSHIP” signs at the tribal office. That is what they think of your poverty, too bad except at election time!

Pilfering of poverty programs by the tribal council leads to more tribal debt and more poverty as the tribal council pays back the federal government audit exceptions for missing funds with millions of tribal dollars leaving less for “the poor people.” Why do not the tribal council go to prison for their embezzlements of tribal and federal dollars? Earl Old Person went to federal court and testified in the loss of $3.2 million Department of Labor funds, offering to pay back the money with tribal dollars. He is the problem.         

WIND & PUMPED-HYDRO SITES ON THE BLACKFEET INDIAN RESERVATION

            In 2007 Montana Public Service Commissioner Ken Toole wrote, “The Blackfeet Tribe has a long-standing interest in wind power, and is critical to approving the St. Mary’s project. Blackfeet involvement in a pumped-hydro system would bring numerous economic benefits to the area and assure that the tribe sees concrete benefits from the use of waters originating on the reservation. The Montana Public Service Commission approved one of the biggest public works projects Montana has seen in the rehabilitation of the St. Mary’s canal. The St. Mary canal takes water from high in the mountains of the Blackfeet Reservation to the Milk River drainage to Highline communities and irrigators. This project is vital to the economic health and well-being of communities across the Highline. Most people think of St. Mary’s canal as a water project for irrigators and municipalities. There are potential benefits to the project as well. We can solve problems with a simple technology called “pumped hydro storage” Build two reservoirs connected by a big pipe and put power generating turbines in the pipe. When the wind is blowing and you don’t need the power, use it to pump water from the lower reservoir back up to the upper reservoir. When the wind isn’t blowing, release water from the upper reservoir and let it flow through the power generating turbines into the lower reservoir.”  

   In 1931 the traditional Blackfeet Chiefs “reserved” the streams and rivers for the future use of the Blackfeet Tribe. An agreement was approved for Glacier Electric Cooperative to use Two Medicine Reservoir and Dam to generate electric power for the Government buildings and Cut Bank. Glacier County Commissioners conceded the Blackfeet Tribe owned all of the hydro-power generation sites on the Reservation.

            There is also a new technology called “mini-hydro” that generates electric power by laying the turbines in the creek bed, which would be ideal for tribal cattle ranchers and the Indians that live along the creeks and rivers to be energy independent, no light bills.

The Blackfeet Tribe already owns a legal right in the Two Medicine Power Generating agreement negotiated by the traditional Blackfeet Chiefs in 1931, to collect all surplus revenues from power generation on the reservation streams and rivers.

We cited the reserved water rights of Blackfeet allotted landowners in the water compact meeting when state and federal officials were in Browning to hear the concerns of the Blackfeet Indians on the water compact. The tribal council’s crazy NARF water attorney screamed “You people don’t own any water rights!” and she was loudly “booed” by tribal members. Earl Old Person, wearing his shades, nodded to the gigantic council security man, who pushed me to the wall. The Native American Rights Attorney got in front of me at the podium and she screamed at us to shut up! I gave our research to the council’s “one man water dept.” but he was in a hurry to get to a high school rodeo.  

The State of Montana televises all state legislature meetings, and all meetings are open to the public, unlike the communist tribal council, who meets in secret, to pass the biscuits back to themselves.  The Montana Legislators laughed when the state water attorney told them about the Blackfeet Tribe’s “one man tribal water department.” He said Earl Old Person was so broke he was waiting for a travel check from the state to go down to Helena to sell our water rights to the State of Montana and border-whites.

The Crow Tribe got $550 million dollars for lost revenues in the construction of Yellowtail Dam on the Crow Indian Reservation. The Salish & Kootenai tribes get $2.3 billion dollars in their water compact settlement, half of Flathead Lake and Kerr Dam.  

In 1982 as director of the Blackfeet Natural Resources Department, I hired the Honorary Council, our traditional chiefs. They showed us the incorrect survey of the Western Boundary of the Blackfeet Reservation from the International Boundary at Canada over to Heart Butte. Glacier Park had taken 13,000 acres in the mountains from the Canadian border to Divide Mountain by removing rock monuments surveyed in the 1896 Agreement down the mountain to the present park boundary at St. Mary Ranger Station, and Sherburne Dam and Reservoir. They are inside the reservation boundary. The Blackfeet Tribe owns Sherburne Dam and Reservoir, and the St. Mary Canal. 

 A 1931 survey of the western reservation boundary from Divide Mountain over to Heart Butte robbed 43,000 acres of Blackfeet land inside the Lewis & Clark National Forest. Great Northern Railway robber baron Jim Hill did not want to locate his rail lines on the reservation, fearing taxes and fees required for railroad rights-of-way across the reservation. He stole the East Glacier hotel sites. Joe Sherburne and BIA robbed the teenage Monroe sisters allotted lands located at the St. Mary entrance to Glacier Park. Blackfeet cattle ranchers were removed from their summer grazing tracts to make room for Jim Hill’s Park Saddle Horse Company. Hills employees transported tourist from East Glacier to St. Mary on horseback to Jim Hills hotels inside Glacier Park. The BIA leased the whole St. Mary valley to Jim Hill’s Park Saddle Horse Company for ten cents an acre. The lease price was set by a former Montana governor appointed to Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. Mrs. Mabel Monroe Bond said, “It was cheaper than stealing it” and she said “Joe Sherburne didn’t even bother to wear a mask” when robbing the Indians.

In 1944 tribal chairman John Sharp told a House of Representatives Committee “White men, real estate sharks, professional traders, and Louis Hill, son of Jim Hill owner of the Great Northern Railway got the Blackfeet oil fields patented through his lobbyists in Washington D.C. He robbed an allotment that produced $3,000,000 in oil that he paid $250 in tax deeds issued by Glacier County. It is estimated the whites got a billion dollars in stolen oil from the Blackfeet Reservation. The Cobell Case did not research the actual losses of the Indians nationwide, but only estimated the losses.

A natural resources economist estimated the Blackfeet losses at least $2.5 billion dollars in oil, cattle, water, and lands since the border-whites robbed the successful, self-reliant Blackfeet cattle industry, allotted lands, oil, and water. The valuation formula for just compensation could only be measured by the “capitalized values of the expected future incomes that would have generated in the future.” Compare that with the State of Montana paying Earl $150 million for all the water taken from the drainages of the western reservation lands. Tourist progeny of Jim Hill’s robbery of the tourism industry in the St. Mary valley and Glacier Park spend $168,000,000 each summer for lodging, beverage, gas, souvenirs etc. Blackfeet landowners just compensation requires restoration of the successful, self-reliant Blackfeet cattle ranchers industry. Glacier County whites profit $61,000,000 in sales of crops & cows, and $7,000,000 federal subsidies in Glacier County living on stolen Blackfeet Indian lands. I tried to get the tribal council to give me one of those $10,000 business grants to gather our research, as I live on a $618 a month social security. I promised the Blackfeet Chiefs to help the people with “land problems.” It bought me trouble with Chairman Old Person. One of us will win, it is up to the people.