Commission studying proposed Bison Range agreement

By MEGAN STRICKLAND

for the Lake County Leader 

The Lake County Commissioners have postponed possible approval of a memorandum of understanding with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes that would ensure some funding for the county if control of the National Bison Range is transferred to the tribal government.

“I would like to see how the public meeting goes,” Commissioner Bill Barron said on July 7 after a meeting with tribal legal representatives.

A public meeting was held last week to educate the public and take public comment and questions about the proposed transfer control of the Bison Range from the federal government to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

County Commissioner Gale Decker said that the meeting was well-attended, but that he wished that some neutral entity other than the Tribes had been put in control of the seminar. He was also concerned that public comment could only be submitted in writing, making it difficult for him to gauge whether or not the public was on board or unhappy with the proposed transfer.

The federal government is currently considering whether or not control of the the Bison Range should be transferred to the Tribes. In 1971 a federal court found that the National Bison Range was one of several properties unconstitutionally taken from the Tribes. The Tribes received compensation for the land, but a tribal attorney said that the payment amounted to $12 or $13 per acre. The Tribes have previously worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help manage the Bison Range, but agreements allowing co-management have expired.

“What this restoration legislation would do is transfer the land so that it is still held by the federal government in trust for the Tribes,” Tribal attorney Brian Upton said. “The Tribes would manage it as the Tribes see fit ... They no longer would have to be managed per federal regulations that govern refuges.”

The tribal attorneys pointed out that the Tribes believe this can result in better management of the Bison Range, because it takes away a lot of federal red tape.

“It’s true that the public avenues for participation will change,” Tribal attorney Shane Morigeau said. “But we really believe that they will improve and increase because we just have to go a few miles down the road to tribal council for somebody who wants to express a concern or ask a question or talk firsthand with any of these people who are in the chain of decision makers who are going to have oversight over the management of the Bison Range.”

Decker said the memorandum of understanding proposed by the Tribes provides a $10,000 per year payment in lieu of taxes to the county government from the Tribes for five years. That is about how much the federal government currently gives the county each year because government-owned land is not taxable. There would be an option to adjust the payments after five years for an additional five year time span, Decker said. The language is different than the currently proposed language in the transfer document, which would make less funding available to the county.

Decker said the Tribes are not mandated to make the payment in lieu of taxes and that the memorandum of understanding is not necessary for the agreement to go through. He said that the memorandum is written in such a way that he believes the commissioners would have to publicly support the transfer if it was signed.

Decker said that there are many parts of the agreement that the commissioners are scrutinizing, including weed management and ensuring that public access for non-tribal members remains the same.

“The Bison Range is a huge economic boon to Lake County,” Decker said. “There are 225,000 visitors per year, most out of state. We need to know what the economic impacts might be if the Tribes were to take over management.”

Tribal Attorney Rhonda Swaney assured Decker that the Range would be properly cared for.

“The Tribes consider the Bison Range to be sacred,” Swaney said.

Commissioner Bill Barron questioned Swaney about access to the Bison Range.

“The concern is frankly that the public won’t have the same access to the facility that the tribal members do,” Barron said.

The attorneys assured Barron that the requirement for continued public access is in the proposed draft legislation.

“It goes above and beyond what exists right now,” Upton said.

Swaney said that the tribal council “has no plans to differentiate between tribal member access and non-member access.”

Decker said that some of the proposed transfer legislation language has stoked worries about equal access.

“It says that the purpose of this restoration is that the National Bison Range shall be managed for the benefit of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes,” Decker said. “That, you know, jerks people’s chains. The original intent was to preserve the bison and it did that. To change to say it’s going to be managed for the benefit of the Tribes, people feel excluded by that. It’s no longer part of me as a lifelong Lake County resident. It’s kind of like a taking away of something.”

Swaney said the Tribes can understand the feeling of having something taken away from them.

“The unconstitutional taking by the United States bothers us just as much as the proposed language bothers you,” Swaney said. “But historically speaking (the Bison Range) should be a part of the Reservation, which was created for the benefit of the Tribes. It’s just being restored.”

Decker said that the commissioners did not have a definitive date when they might vote on the proposed memorandum of understanding.