WASHINGTON — After a long history of bloodshed and forced removals, the
U.S. military has been giving something back to Indian country.

Since the Cold War ended, the government has closed 97 major military bases
at a savings of $29 billion to the American taxpayer. Tribes from the
Muckleshoot to the St. Regis Mohawk are among those who have obtained
surplus military land for housing, recreation and enhancing portfolio
investments.

Now, another round of closings — the first in 10 years — is imminent.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced in May that some 5 percent of
3,700 domestic bases and installations would be recommended for closure.
The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission will submit an edited
list to the president and Congress, pending final approval in September.

The BRAC experience, many tribes advise, is something akin to inching
through a live minefield in the middle of the night.

When the K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was
selected for closure, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians were
interested. The base was located on the border of land taken from the tribe
in the Chippewa-Ottawa Treaty of 1836.

The BRAC reclamation process began in 1994 — and proceeded at a slow
crawl. “I’d never seen so much bureaucracy,” said Robert Nygaard, the
tribe’s former director of planning and current director of legislative
affairs, who fingered the BIA as a major culprit in the holdup.

The Chippewa were in it for the long haul, said Nygaard. They toured the
base and made a formal request for the land at the early “excess” phase.
They also established a good working relationship with the Local
Redevelopment Authority — the decision-making body representing local
governments that implements the land changeover.

The Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa, with about 2,000 acres in trust, has a core
reservation in Sault Ste. Marie and additional land in seven outlying
areas. To be eligible for BRAC, they had to have trust property within 25
miles of the base.

The tribe has been running casinos since the mid-1980s; the LRA wanted
gaming, explained Nygaard, but the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act stipulated
that casinos weren’t permitted on land obtained after its passage.

The process would drag on for six years. In the end, the tribe prevailed —
the Chippewa paid nothing for their 98 acres of land except for surveys,
metering, property descriptions and other incidental costs.

The tribe came away with 275 housing units — single-family, duplexes and
multiplexes — along with three industrial buildings and a gas station.
About one-quarter of the units house Chippewa, while the balance is for
students and non-members. The tribe got the best available units, said
Nygaard, because they got a jump on the competition.

Nygaard has advice aplenty for BRAC-seeking tribes: Arrange for a site
visit immediately; contact the LRA without delay; submit the plan to the
BIA with a tribal resolution; get the BIA and Office of Management and
Budget to sign on; make frequent visits to all parties, including those in
Washington; respond to requests for information; don’t depend on the BIA
for property descriptions; and attend all record-of-decision meetings.

Tribes can get what they want, Nygaard advised, if they “keep an open mind
and, most important, follow through.”

It didn’t turn out that way for an alliance of Kumeyaay Indians in southern
California. In 1993, the Kumeyaay learned about the closure of the San
Diego Naval Training Center, and set out to get a piece of it. But the race
had started without them.

The BIA failed to notify the tribe of the closure in a timely fashion,
explained Louis Guassac, a Sycuan Band of Mission Indians member who
represented the Kumeyaay during BRAC negotiations. The tribe finally had to
approach the Navy to find out how to file a letter of intent and jump-start
the process.

The 550-acre base was within the traditional territory of the Kumeyaay.
Acting on behalf of 18 bands in San Diego County, Guassac made the case to
authorities that the land would be important for “touching the ocean
again.”

The tribe planned two hotels, some light industry and housing. A
high-powered competitor — the city of San Diego — had a similar design.
The only difference between their plans, said Guassac, was that the
Kumeyaay included an aquaculture component for farming abalone.

The BIA had no one who understood the process, Guassac complained. “We were
left with no technical assistance except what we could do for ourselves.”
Living in a high desert region, the bands wanted to reconnect with their
coastal past and spur area development. They offered to put in writing that
gaming would be prohibited.

The city balked. Then-mayor Susan Golding denied them a seat on the re-use
committee, Guassac said. The all-important LRA overlapped with the city
council, he explained, even though such authorities were created to avoid a
conflict of interests.

When it came time to parcel out the land, the Kumeyaay came up empty. “The
tribe would have been happy with a piece of [the training center],” said
Guassac. “To not even get an acre is appalling.”

In 1998, the bands sued the city of San Diego in federal court and won a
preliminary decision, soon reversed. Lacking resources, the tribe dropped
its appeal in 2002.

“They weren’t about to change an ‘old boy system’ to work with Indians,”
Guassac summed up. “The city of San Diego did not want Indians in San
Diego.”

While tribes can be dealt a bad hand, sometimes the rules change in the
middle of the game. When Fort Wingate, N.M., closed in 1993, the Navajo
Nation entered the BRAC competition, only to learn four years later the
land was to be withdrawn through the Bureau of Land Management, not the
military.

Some of the 22,000 acres have since been transferred to the BIA. Meanwhile,
the Navajo and Zuni are negotiating how to divide the land, said Navajo
Industrial Development Representative Sharlene Begay-Platero, “to get what
is needed for both tribes.” But the Army didn’t know the land’s status in
the first place, she said. Years of time and resources were lost in the
doing.

Begay-Platero recommended that tribes pursue surplus land, documenting
their aboriginal claims — and make sure the authorities know what they’re
talking about.