WASHINGTON – Almost three years after the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Oneida Indian Nation of New York the sovereign right to assert immunity over its 250,000-acre historic territory, the BIA has recommended placing more than 13,000 acres of the tribe’s ancestral homeland into federal trust.
The recommendation was announced by the BIA in a Final Environmental Impact Statement issued Feb. 22. (The OIN owns Four Directions Media, parent company of Indian Country Today.)
The nation had asked the Interior Department to take 17,370 acres into trust in April 2005, less than a week after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the tribe had waited too long to assert its claim of sovereignty over its historical reservation boundaries. The high court ruled that reacquired ancestral land was not sovereign and, therefore, was taxable and subject to local and state control. The court suggested that the tribe consider placing its reacquired lands in federal trust.
The BIA’s recommendation to place 13,086 acres in trust status falls short of the nation’s requested 17,370 acres, but ”represents a compromise action [that] reflects a focus on the immediate and shorter-term needs of the Nation to establish a sovereign homeland and on the New York state and local government requests to consider a more compact and contiguous trust land grouping,” according to the FEIS executive summary.
Local governments in Madison and Oneida counties wanted no more than around 1,000 acres to be taken into trust.
The FEIS presented nine alternatives ranging from no action to the phased acquisition of 35,000 acres into trust.
Interior will issue a final decision on the nation’s trust application by March 25, followed by a 30-day appeal period. Interior can accept the BIA’s preferred plan, choose one of the other eight plans the Indian agency outlined, or something entirely different.
The BIA’s preferred plan comprises two ”relatively condensed” clusters of land including property centered around the nation’s Turning Stone Resort and Casino, and surrounding the nation’s 32-acre reservation – all that remained of its 300,000-acre reservation acknowledged under the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua and alienated over the years through violations of the 1790 Trade and Intercourse Act.
Both clusters are adjacent to other nation-owned properties.
The preferred plan includes 80 members’ residences, the majority of government services, Turning Stone and the nation’s five golf courses, four of its 13 SavOn gas stations and convenience stores, a Black Angus cattle farm, 9,789 acres of agricultural land, 3,076 acres used for hunting and fishing, and 2,274 acres of wetlands.
The 4,284 acres omitted from the nation’s request include 18 members’ residential properties and some government services including media relations, member services department and security offices. Also omitted are the cultural resources department, living history department, festival sites, living history re-enactment sites and many important archaeological sites, according to the FEIS.
The FEIS leaves open the possibility of placing the excluded lands under trust, however.
”Omission of these lands from trust should not be interpreted as an indication that the nation is precluded from filing future applications to take the subject land into trust,” according to the FEIS.
Some of the cultural, historic, religious and archaeological properties excluded under the recommended plan would be federally protected by the Archaeological Resources Protection Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Oneida spokesman Mark Emery expressed the nation’s satisfaction with the report.
”We are grateful for the Department of Interior’s hard work during this process,” Emery said. ”Now is a good time to move beyond the negativity and toward a better community for all of us.”
But New York officials felt differently.
”That’s totally unacceptable,” said Oneida County Legislator Mike Hennessy, one of several local leaders who were about the recommendation by Interior officials, according to an Associated Press report.
”I am extremely disappointed about the acreage involved in this recommendation, and urge the Department of the Interior to reject it,” said state Sen. David Valesky. ”This proposal will not solve the issue, and does nothing to address the local concerns about loss of local tax revenue and the impact on local businesses.”
The BIA’s analysis belies the New York officials’ claims about lost revenues, however.
Even though the 13,086 acres would be exempt from property taxes, the report said that loss would be offset by an increase in the growth of income, sales and property taxes from residents and employees. State and local governments already benefit from the nation’s revenues.
”In 2005, the Nation payments [$24.29 million] exceeded its costs in government services, resulting in a beneficial net effect on the New York state and local governments of about $16.76,” the report says.
The FEIS is available for viewing at www.oneidanation trust.com.
