[env-trinity] Hoopa Valley Tribe - $90 Million Rejection

[TBedros765 at aol.com]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – April 20, 2007

 
HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE APPEALS DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR
DECISION ON THE HOOPA-YUROK SETTLEMENT FUND

 Media Contacts:        Clifford Lyle Marshall              (530) 625-4211
                              Tom Schlosser                    (206) 386-5200
Tod Bedrosian                          (916) 421-5121


Hoopa, Calif. – In what the Hoopa Valley Tribe called a, “reprehensible and 
lawless,” action the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) today handed $90 
million of trust fund monies that originally came from Hoopa timber sales to the 
Yurok Tribe. “This is reminiscent of faithless federal actions in the 19th 
Century when Indian agents would give the property of one tribe to another and hide 
from their responsibilities,” said Hoopa Tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle 
Marshall. He was reacting to a letters sent to him today from Ross Swimmer, DOI 
Special Trustee who released the funds, and a second letter from DOI Deputy 
Solicitor Lawrence Jensen informing the Hoopa Valley Tribe that Secretary of Interior 
Dirk Kempthorne would not refer the distribution decision to the Department 
of Interior Board of Indian Appeals.

Marshall said the Hoopa Valley Tribe is considering its legal options 
including forcing the U.S. Treasury to pay damages for the loss of tribal trust 
monies. This is a result the Hoopa Valley Tribe has been trying to avoid.   It is 
unclear how or whether the funds will be made available to the Yurok Tribe. If 
and when money is withdrawn from the trust account a damages claim will 
follow.

The original monies in the HYSA Trust Fund came (98%) from timber sales on 
the Hoopa Valley Reservation. The tribe agreed to share the timber receipts 
money with the Yuroks as a condition of the l988 Congressional HYSA act that split 
the reservations. The Yuroks refused to accept the division of the 
reservation and the money. Their unsuccessful litigation for more money ended when the 
U.S. Supreme Court would not hear their case. “The Settlement Act gave the 
Yurok Tribe until November 1993 to drop its litigation and obtain certain 
benefits; it refused to do so,” said Chairman Marshall. “Now that they lost in the 
courts they have used lobbying tactics at the Department of Interior to reverse 
the last decade of legal and administrative decisions saying they could not 
access this money.”

The Hoopa Valley Tribe had asked Congress to intervene and resolve this final 
fiscal chapter of the HYSA. Marshall said, “Congress could have resolved this 
issue equitably for both tribes, but the Interior Department has chosen to 
amend the statute by itself.”

                                    - 30-   





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