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Document:
Congressional Testimony Regarding the Grand Coulee Settlement Act, 1994,
Warren Seyler
August 2, 1994, Tuesday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 1159 words
HEADLINE: TESTIMONY AUGUST 2, 1994 WARREN SEYLER CHAIRMAN SPOKANE TRIBE OF INDIANS HOUSE NATURAL RESOURCES/OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS COLVILLE RESERVATION SETTLEMENT ACT
BODY:
TESTIMONY OF WARREN SEYLER
CHAIRMAN, SPOKANE TRIBE OF INDIANS
ON H.R.4757
(GRAND COULEE DAM COMPENSATION)
BEFORE THE
OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
August 2, 1994
Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to testify on H.R. 4757. Accompanying me is our attorney, Patrick Smith, who is available for questions and may have a few comments.
I am here today on behalf of the Spokane Tribe to ask for your help. Specifically, I ask for your recognition of the Spokane Tribe's right to fair and honorable treatment by the United States Government for the Grand Coulee Project. We have prepared briefing books for the Committee which provide more detailed background on this issue. My testimony today summarizes our key concerns.
The reservoir behind Grand Coulee Dam flooded two tribes. We are one of the two tribes. Our reservation is smaller than the Colville, but the impacts to our people were as severe. We are both victims of the same misconduct.
Our ancestors buried their dead on the banks of the Spokane and Columbia Rivers with their heads pointing down river. We did this because our life, culture, economy and religion centered around the Spokane and Columbia Rivers. We were river people. We were fishing people. The Spokane River--named after our people--was and is the center of our world. That is why when the Spokane Reservation was established in 1881 it expressly provides that the entire adjacent riverbed of the Columbia and Spokane Rivers is part of the Spokane Reservation.
Because of Grand Coulee Dam, the Spokane River is now an arm of Lake Roosevelt. The western and southern boundaries of our Reservation--our best lands and fishing sites--lie at the lake bottom.
In 1978, the U.S. Indian Claims Commission ruled that the United States Government's conduct in building Grand Coulee Dam was unfair and dishonorable and, therefore, awarded the Colville Tribe over $3 million for fishery losses. In 1992, the Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit ruled that the Colville's claim for power value, based on the same standard, was not barred. This resulted in the recent settlement that brings us here today.
The Spokane Tribe was subjected to the identical, misconduct by the United States Government as the Colville Tribe. Both tribes were equally deceived. In 1933, when construction on Grand Coulee began, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs recommended, in writing, compensation to both tribes in the form of annual payments. it never happened.
Grand Coulee Dam is one the largest concrete structures in the world and this nation's largest producer of electricity. it has produced enormous benefits for others--subsidized irrigation, "cheap" electricity, and water pumped to the Columbia Basin. Gross electricity sales from Grand Coulee Dam are approximately $400 million each year.
The Spokane Tribe has subsidized this "cheap" electricity for 53 years through the loss of our cultural, religious, burial, power and irrigation sites. We have never been compensated for the destruction of our fishery or for our contribution to Grand Coulee power production. The total compensation the Spokane Tribe has received from the United States Government is $4,700. Yet, every @ the Grand Coulee Project produces millions of dollars in benefits to our trustee and others.
I am here today requesting that this injustice not go unanswered. That the United States Government recognize our contributions and sacrifices. Many of the Spokane claims are barred by statutes of limitation. Unlike the Colville, our Tribe did not have attorneys to advise us to file a claim for Grand Coulee before the August 1951 filing deadline set forth in the Indian Claims Commission Act. Nor did the BIA advise us how or when to file this claim, as provided in the Act. The BIA office serving our Reservation was located 100 miles away on the Colville Reservation. Unlike the Colville, whose government was organized and functioning years before the filing deadline, our tribal government organized, and our constitution was approved, only two months before the filing deadline in 1951.
We are requesting that Congress include as a separate title to this bill a waiver of the statute of limitations to allow the Spokane Tribe to seek just and equitable compensation from the United States Government resulting from construction and operation of Grand Coulee Dam. There is ample legislative precedent for Congress to do so. In our briefing book, at pages 15-17, we cite many examples of where Congress has waived the statute of limitations and other technical defenses where justice and equity so required. The most recent example of this concerns the taking of Indian lands on the Fort Berthold and Standing Rock Reservations for the construction of two federal dams on the Missouri River, Garrison Dam and Oahe Dam.
In 1992, having found that the $12 million each Missouri River tribe originally received was completely inadequate in light of the devastating and disproportionate share of the impact borne by those tribes, Congress enacted the "Three Affiliated Tribes and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Equitable Compensation Program Act." Congress appropriated $149.2 million for the Three Affiliated Tribes and $90.6 million for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
In another example, Congress waived the statute of limitations for the Zuni Tribe because (quote) "the Zuni Indian tribal leadership failed to comprehend the absolute necessity of filing a claim during the statutory five-year period ending in 1951." (P.L. 95-280). Numerous other examples are cited where Congress afforded similar relief: the Wichita Tribe, the Sioux, the Cow Creek Band, the Three Affiliated Tribes, the Blackfeet, the Gros Ventre, the Assiniboine, and the Tule River Tribe.
An equally compelling case exists here. The Columbia and Spokane Rivers were taken from the Spokane Indians over 50 years ago in a classic case of self-dealing by our legal guardian. The United States Government exploited the Grand Coulee site for the benefit of itself and others at the expense of the Spokane Tribe. Its conduct was neither fair nor honorable--as established by the courts and evidenced by the legislation before this body.
Unless the Congress waives this statute of limitations, there is no incentive whatsoever for federal agencies to negotiate in good faith with our Tribe. To compensate one of the two Tribes devastated by Grand Coulee, and not the other, will only compound the injustice to our people and prolong this conflict.
Mr. Chairman, and honorable members of this Committee, I ask you to listen with your hearts. We have no place to turn. We have no place to go. We ask for our day of justice. we have waited for this day for over fifty years.
Thank you.