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Thursday August 21, 2003
Investigation finds that Navajo landowners are underpaid for land rights
by Robert Gehrke Associated Press Writer Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Companies paid private landowners near the Navajo reservation in the Southwest nearly 20 times what Navajos got for the right to build pipelines across their land, a court-appointed investigator reported Wednesday.
Such discrepancies and the destruction of records related to the deal are a failure of the Interior Department’s legal duty to American Indian landowners to ensure fair payment for the use of their land, the report said.
“It is doubtful,” wrote the investigator, Alan Balaran, whether Navajos “are receiving ’fair market value’ for leases encumbering their land. It is certain they are denied the information necessary to make such a determination.”
Balaran was appointed by a federal judge to investigate document destruction in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of an estimated 500,000 American Indians. They allege the Interior Department failed to properly manage oil, gas, timber and grazing royalties for Indians over the last century, and put the mismanagement at tens of billions of dollars owed to the Indians since 1887.
In 1999, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled the department had breached its trust responsibility and ordered the government to account for what should have been paid to the Indians.
The Interior Department has accused Balaran of bias and asked the judge to remove him from the case. Department spokesman Dan DuBray said the latest report is flawed and again reflects that bias.
DuBray said the process for appraising Indian lands is complex, but “an independent, objective and unbiased review of Interior’s appraisal activity will find it is reasonable and appropriate.”
The Navajo Nation is the largest Indian reservation in the nation, spanning 18 million acres, an area larger than West Virginia, in parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
It is plagued with near-Third World living conditions. Of the 30,000 Navajo homes, nearly 50 percent lack plumbing. The average annual income is $4,100 and 55 percent live in poverty.
The tribe’s revenue is primarily from oil and gas mining. The reservation is crisscrossed with major pipelines carrying natural gas to California.
“These Navajo allottees are people who rely on this for their basic necessities. It’s just devastating when they don’t get what they’re entitled to,” said Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., whose district includes part of the Navajo Nation.
When the leases for using the property were negotiated, representatives from the oil and gas pipeline companies dealt directly with the Navajo landowners, getting their approval. That sometimes was signified on the document by a thumbprint since many of the Navajos cannot write, read or speak English.
The government would then review and approve the lease.
Private landowners in the San Juan Basin leased rights of way across their land to the gas pipeline companies for between $432 and $455 annually for each rod — a measurement equaling 16.5 feet. Indian tribes leased their land for between $140 and $575 a year for the same length.
The leases for the Navajo individual landowners provided for just $25 to $40 annually.
They spanned 20 years, meaning the Navajo landowner could be losing as much as $11,000 for every 5 1/2-yard length of pipeline across their land during the duration of the contract. Balaran did quantify how much the Navajos may have lost due to the disparity.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the report shows the Interior Department, in concert with oil and gas companies, cheated Navajos out of tens of millions of dollars.
“This is a continuation of disgraceful conduct by an unfit and incompetent trustee,” lawyer Dennis Gingold said.
Anson Baker, the Bureau of Indian Affair’s chief appraiser for the Navajo region, told Balaran that he had erased all of the computer files that he said justified the Navajo payments. Baker was recently transferred to Oregon after more than two decades at the Navajo office.
Balaran said the destruction of documents was a clear violation of the court’s order to preserve the Indian records. He recommended that Lamberth initiate a full investigation to determine the scope of the problem.
It was the latest in a string of reports to the court detailing failures by the Interior Department.
“Every report seems to document more serious violations and I’m really losing confidence in the ability of the department to deal with this situation,” Udall said.
The great American land row American Indians are embroiled in a $137bn lawsuit with the US Government over land royalties. The saga, which has been going on for seven years, rests on a judge’s decision, which is expected shortly.
