KENT, Conn. – When Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell testified at a Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing in May 2005, she claimed that there were no tribal reservations left in the state.

;’We have few expanses of open or undeveloped land. Historical reservation lands no longer exist. They’re now cities and towns filled with family homes, churches and schools,” Rell said at the hearing, which is available at http://indian.senate.gov.

Now the state says it can’t stop a non-Schaghticoke man from cutting down trees and excavating land on the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation’s 400-acre reservation in Kent.

Tribal council member Joseph Velky, who is a nephew of STN Chief Richard Velky and a member of the nation’s Environmental Committee, said he asked the Department of Environmental Protection Nov. 19 to intervene to stop the destruction. The DEP holds the land in trust for the tribe.

”Officials there and at the state police and the state’s attorney’s office said they couldn’t intervene because they don’t know who owns the land or who the leader of the Schaghticoke is,” Joseph Velky said.

Matt Fritz, who was DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy’s chief of staff until transferring recently to the governor’s office, said a tribal ”leadership dispute” prevents DEP from intervening to protect the land.

”Joe [Velky] is very passionate about what’s happening on the reservation and I don’t disagree with him about what [the non-Schaghticoke man] is doing. I’ve looked at every aspect of how we can stop this. I wish we could do more, but based on the legal interpretations I’ve gotten from inside here and outside of here, the DEP’s role is very limited,” Fritz said.

A factional dispute has existed since the late 1990s, when Alan Russell and members of his family broke away from STN. Russell, who is Richard Velky’s cousin, claims leadership of a group called the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe, according to BIA documents.

The BIA federally acknowledged the 300-member STN in 2004, only to take the unprecedented step of reversing its decision in 2005. The tribal nation awaits a federal court ruling on its appeal of the reversal.

Russell, who lived on the reservation until the last week in February when his house burned down, heads around a dozen members comprised largely of his immediate family. The BIA considered Russell’s faction as non-enrolled members of the STN’s base community.

In a 2000 letter, former DEP Commissioner Arthur Rocque acknowledged Chief Richard Velky, who lives off the reservation, as the head of the tribe and said he would continue to do so until a successful legal challenge to Velky’s position.

Asked why the DEP had changed its policy after Rocque left in 2004, Fritz said, ”Mr. [Richard] Velky has made a very compelling case for sure, but we believe there’s a dispute and we can’t solve that dispute.”

Fritz acknowledged that there had not been a legal, documented challenged of Richard Velky’s leadership.

The alleged ”leadership dispute” has been further complicated by a change within the Russell faction. According to Fritz and DEP documents, Russell’s sister Gail Harrison says she deposed her brother a few months ago and is now chief of the SIT. Neither Harrison nor Russell could be reached for comment.

Fritz said that Harrison ”gave permission” to the non-Schaghticoke man to cut down trees and excavate land. He said the department is aware of the man’s claim to be building the ”Great American Freedom Pyramid” as described at www.algonquinfieldstone.com/free dom/freedom.htm.

The only way the ”leadership dispute” could be solved would be for Velky and Russell – or perhaps Harrison – to take the issue to court, according to Fritz.

But Joseph Velky said the DEP is violating state statutes that detail a different process to resolve such disputes.

”Richard Velky has been the acknowledged Schaghticoke leader since 1987. The claim is backed up by BIA, court and state documents. The only way to dispute that is through a formal challenge. There hasn’t been a formal challenge,” Joseph Velky said.

Fritz said the DEP consulted with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who led the state’s opposition to the tribal nation’s federal acknowledgement.

”The AG hasn’t advised us not to act. They’ve said there is a tribal dispute. They don’t recognize this one or that one.”

But Joseph Velky holds the DEP responsible for not protecting the tribe’s land ”under the pretext of a leadership dispute they created. The state is not authorized to come up with tribal leaders out of the clear-blue sky. The governing body has to be recognized by the tribe and its practices, and the tribe did that back in the 1980s under the supervision of the Connecticut Indian Affairs Council when a vote was taken and STN was acknowledged as the governing body,” Joseph Velky said.

”In an attempt to erase tribal existence, the AG’s office tried to make Schaghticoke appear like a weak and leaderless tribe, and that could not be farther from the truth. It’s his hope that the Schaghticoke people will self destruct. I apologize to my ancestors for not addressing this issue earlier.”

Blumenthal declined to comment for this story.

Joseph Velky said he has now turned to state legislators to stop further destruction on the reservation.