Land transfer draws protest
By Heidi Bell Gease and Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writers
RAPID CITY � About a hundred mostly American Indian protesters walked out of a public meeting here Thursday, angrily denouncing the federal government's plan to transfer land along the Missouri River to the state of South Dakota.
"This is a farce," Harvey White Woman of the Oglala Sioux Tribe said. "This meeting is not in the best interests of our people."
White Woman and many other protesters � some carrying signs, others carrying flags � left midway through a public hearing at Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was gathering public comments on the transfer of 91,178 acres of federal land along the banks of the Missouri River to the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish & Parks.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Gov. Bill Janklow worked together to craft legislation that in January will give the state control of most of the banks of the Missouri River, including more than 3,000 miles of shoreline on four huge reservoirs.
Janklow and Daschle argued that the state could manage the land better than the Corps of Engineers.
Many Indians say the transfer violates treaties.
The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 gave Sioux tribes all of western South Dakota.
Indian protesters said Congress illegally reneged on the treaty in 1889, and they called the transfer of river land another illegal land grab.
"The intent is still there, and that is to take treaty lands," said Jay Taken Alive, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council who spoke at a Thursday news conference. "This is a monumental ... event for us because it does involve water rights, and it involves treaty land."
He said voters on the Standing Rock reservation defeated the idea by a vote of 1,435-160 in 1999.
Taken Alive and other protesters attended a rally before the meeting at nearby Roosevelt Park.
Robert Quiver, a member of the Lakota Student Alliance who camped in protest on La Framboise Island at Pierre, urged tribal officials to boycott Thursday night's hearing. Instead, Quiver encouraged them to ask for immediate repeal of the law and to demand a full investigation by the Senate.
Protesters also marched to the meeting behind a color guard. Inside, they lined up around the outside of the meeting room, holding poster-board signs, which they gently rattled in support of speakers.
During the hearing, White Woman called for an investigation of Daschle. Many protesters singled out Daschle for criticism, including rancher Marvin Kammerer, a longtime social activist and supporter of Indian land claims. Kammerer said he had supported Daschle for Senate. "Never again," Kammerer said.
The meeting in Rapid City was the eighth and final hearing to collect public comments on a "draft environmental-impact statement" on the land transfer.
The National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, requires environmental-impact statements on almost all federal projects, even though Corps officials say this one is mostly moot. Corps of Engineers Project Manager Mike George of Omaha, Neb., said Thursday the environmental-impact statement will not stop the project, which Congress already has approved.
"It can't force any action," George said, and he acknowledged that Indians were frustrated by that. There also were protests at meetings on the Standing Rock and Crow Creek reservations, George said, but Thursday's meeting was the angriest. "This is the most frustration I've seen expressed."
Oglala Sioux Tribe Vice President Theresa Two Bulls said her tribe was especially frustrated by the Corps' reneging on an earlier pledge to at least study treaty issues. "The Corps failed to do the analysis," Two Bulls said.
George agreed there was an earlier promise, but the draft environmental statement now says treaties "are not within the purview" of its analysis.
Most protesters said the Corps of Engineers should oppose the transfer in spite of Congress.
"It's, like, what part of 'no' don't you understand?" Roxanne Sazue, chairwoman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, said at the rally. Later, she repeated her comments in the hearing. "We do not want the land transferred."
Indians also object on cultural grounds. When the Army Corps began building dams on the Missouri River more than 50 years ago, much of the reservation land along the river was flooded, forcing people to relocate.
Burial grounds were left behind, Sazue said, and human remains and funerary objects frequently are unearthed along the river banks. "There are federal laws to protect these sacred cultural resources," she said in a prepared statement. "The Corps of Engineers is preparing to transfer the land as quickly as possible and ignoring the need to continue to protect the remains of our ancestors."
The Crow Creek tribe has filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming that the transfer violates environmental and
historic-preservation laws as well as the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.
Attorney Peter Capossela said the court has yet to hear the case. "It's real difficult to go into their (federal) courts and object to their actions," he said.
A handful of non-Indians joined the protests.
Brian Brademeyer of the Black Hills Group of the Sierra Club said his group had proposed three alternatives to the transfer � including a smaller transfer, a transfer within federal agencies and a transfer of western shoreline to the Sioux Nation Treaty Council.
The Corps of Engineers called those proposals "unreasonable" and did not analyze them.
The South Dakota Peace & Justice Center, a social-activist group based in Watertown, also opposes the transfer. Jeanne Koster, director of the center, said the transfer would limit tribal access to Missouri River water to the duration of the Mni Wiconi pipeline project. Koster said tribes should have access to water forever.
In fact, the draft environmental-impact statement itself also lists "significant adverse impacts" the land transfer could have for Indians. George said Indian people who use Corps of Engineers recreation areas for free, sometimes for religious ceremonies, will have to pay a state entrance fees after the transfer.
The meeting started out politely, but after two hours, protesters were shouting at George and an environmental consultant who helped him run the meeting.
Standing Buffalo, a young man from Pine Ridge, warned that the tribe would call for a "public citizen's arrest" of anyone who signed the transfer.
Kammerer and Brademeyer joined protesters who left the meeting.
Most protesters were from three tribes: the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe.
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe will get land under the transfer, but Thursday's hearing addressed only the land transfer to South Dakota.
For other Indians, a basic issue is at stake. "In our minds, in our hearts, the treaties are in full force," Taken Alive said.
You may call reporter Heidi Bell Gease at 394-8419, or send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED].
You may call reporter Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or send e-mail to[EMAIL PROTECTED].
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