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News you can use
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The deadline is right around the corner for people to file as candidates to fill the spot vacated when the tribal council members at Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation voted to remove their chair. The special election to fill the spot held by Ken Blatt St. Marks, who won the regular election last fall, is set for Tuesday, May 21. St. Marks said this morning that he could not comment on whether he would take action to fight his removal. "I am still the chairman there," he added, The Chippewa Cree Tribe Business Committee removed...
Bernstein The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created in 1824 by the War Department of the U.S. government. Its main function was to control Native American opposition to white American expansion into Indian lands. The bureau became a part of the Interior Department in 1849, and the concept of containing the Indians within a system of reservations became official government policy. Today, the bureau costs U.S. taxpayers about $3 billion dollars a year. Its primary purpose seems to be to attempt to legitimize the 200-year-old...
HELENA — Federal officials this week lifted their temporary hold on funding for a $361 million water pipeline for a Native American reservation in northern Montana after Chippewa Cree tribal officials demonstrated they were addressing conflicts and accounting problems. The Bureau of Reclamation notified tribal leaders in March there would be no additional funding for the 50-mile pipeline project until the tribe showed action had been taken. The federal agency found problems that included missing money, a conflict of i...
A federal investigation into allegations of misuse of money intended for a regional water project could have impacts far beyond the borders of Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation. Paul Tuss, executive director of Bear Paw Development Corp. in Havre, said he doubts that the Bureau of Reclamation freezing funding for the Rocky Boy's/North Central Montana Regional Water System Project is more than a bump in the road, but if the project were canceled, it would be a problem. "It would have a significantly negative impact on the...
BOX ELDER — Federal officials temporarily stopped funding a $361 million water pipeline for a Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation after learning that millions of project dollars were missing and a Chippewa Cree leader, former State Rep. Tony Belcourt, D-Box Elder, in charge of the project steered federal dollars to a company he owns. AP Photo/Matt Volz Kenneth Blatt St. Marks sits at his home in Box Elder. St. Marks, the former chairman of the Chippewa Cree tribe, is participating in a federal investigation into corruption on t...
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is looking for public comments on a proposal to extend cattle grazing on a wildlife management area in Hill County for two more years, while a long-term management plan is developed. A draft of an environmental assessment on continued grazing on the Fresno Reservoir Wildlife Management Area, or WMA, about 23 miles northwest of Havre found that continuing grazing on the site for two years could have minor impacts on soil, vegetation and wildlife, while also providing benefits including better...
Laurel — U.S. Rep. Steve Daines has a good idea that is worth looking into. He would let the Bureau of Reclamation allow hydropower dams be built on streams canals and ditches. That would provide jobs and create cheap, renewable energy for Montana. Dart — We have no idea if the people arrested on methamphetamine sale are guilty or not. The courts will make that decision. But the arrest reinforces the feeling that there is a lot more to do in the war on meth. It appeared for a while that progress was being made, and that few...
Montana's freshman U.S. representative is looking to overturn a 1936 rule, an action that would allow generating electricity from federal water projects including the Milk River Project. Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., introduced a bill Tuesday striking the 1939 requirement that the U.S. government retain all rights to hydroelectric power on all U.S. Bureau of Reclamation canals, ditches and conduits. The bill requires the Department of Interior to first offer leases for producing hydropower to irrigation districts or water...
Courtesy photo Montana businessman, rancher, state senator and active community member William T. Cowan of Box Elder wears the clothing given to him by the Chippewa Cree Tribe of Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation. The local museum has set a special display honoring a pioneer businessman, rancher and state senator, Box Elder's William T. Cowan, or Little Bone Chief. The display, set between the pioneering and Native American sections of the H. Earl Clack Museum, shows a decorated buckskin jacket, leggings, moccasins and a feather...
The group working to find ways to plan and fund rehabilitation of a mainstay of north-central Montana — an irrigation project that provides 50 to 95 percent of the water in the Milk River each year — unanimously voted Wednesday to hire a consultant to draft a detailed work plan for the group. The St. Mary Diversion Rehabilitation Working Group voted to approve a suggestion from the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to use the last of a state grant to hire a facilitator to draft the plan. Government off...
The Chippewa Cree Tribal Election Board of Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation has removed the former chair of the tribal council as a candidate for the chair, three days after it certified him as a candidate. The Election Board issued a press release Thursday saying Ken Blatt St. Marks is ineligible as a candidate in the May 21 election being held to fill the spot, vacated when the other board members removed him from office. He was listed as one of the certified candidates authorized by the board Monday. The other candidates...
The federal agency that administers Fresno Dam and Fresno Reservoir has decided to increase recreation access at the spillway below the dam, the agency said in a press release Tuesday. Mike LaFrentz, Bureau of Reclamation Marias-Milk Rivers Division Manager, said that the bureau has an obligation to provide safety at and security for its facilities, but, "after listening to comments from the public and evaluating the situation, Reclamation has determined that our safety and security needs can be met while accommodating...
On the heels of the controversial purchase of a ranch in Hill County, local residents had a consistent message to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks during a meeting about a wildlife area northwest of Havre, near the edge of that very ranch — don't fix something that's not broken. The issue is grazing on a 2,600-acre wildlife management area just northwest of Fresno Reservoir. Local farmers Shawn and Jessica Wall lease the grazing rights on the area, and have since it was opened to grazing in 1992. People at a meeting in H...
The Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday that it will increase access to the popular fishing site on Milk River near Fresno Dam. Access was cut off after the Sept. 11 attacks. "After listening to comments from the public and evaluating the situation, Reclamation has determined that our safety and security needs can be met while accommodating additional public access." said Mike LaFrentz, BOR's Marias-Milk Rivers division manager. Fencing will be installed as part of the changes in security, he said. Construction should be...
GREAT FALLS — A Chippewa Cree tribal leader, a former state lawmaker and three others used a fake billing system and a shell company to pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus aid meant for the Montana tribe, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. AP Photo/Matt Volz Chippewa Cree tribal leader John "Chance" Houle, left, walks out of U.S. District Court in Great Falls after being arraigned on Tuesday. Houle and four others are accused of diverting federal stimulus funds. The Chippewa Cree Tribe received $33 m...
Members of a group working to rehabilitate the system that provides much of the water in the Milk River each year have a meeting set for Wednesday, April 10, in Havre to hear updates on plans to repair and upgrade the system. The St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group, co-chaired by Blaine County agricultural producer Randy Reed and Lt. Gov. John Walsh, will meet in the Large Conference Room at Bear Paw Development Corp. in the Ryan building from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. A grassroots coalition started early last decade working on...
A Havre native has been selected, pending Senate approval, to join other Hi-Line natives on the staff and administration of the incoming governor. Gov. -elect Steve Bullock announced he is appointing Jeff Hagener director of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Hagener said he is pleased to return to heading the agency. "It is really an honor to go back to an agency that I have a great deal of passion for," said Hagener. He would go back to FWP in a period of controversy over issues ranging from bison relocation to the state...
Montana's junior U. S. senator, Democrat Jon Tester, has again weighed in on a question on fishing west of Havre. The U. S. Bureau of Reclamation held a listening session in Havre last week, which Tester had joined others in requesting, to hear comments about increasing access to the tailwaters of Fresno Dam, a popular fishing site since the dam was built in the 1930s. Access to the tailwaters was restricted following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Retired Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks fish biologist and fisherman...
As Montana's U. S. senators announce a proposal to provide a secure funding source for rural water projects, the Indian tribe working on one of those projects announced a milestone. The Chippewa Cree Tribe of Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation announced Friday that its Tribal Water Resource Department has accepted the operations and maintenance responsibilities on behalf of the U. S. Bureau of Indian Affairs for the core system of the Rocky Boy's/North Central Montana Regional Water System. The day before the tribe announced...
A bill written and sponsored by Montana's U. S. senators to provide money for rural water projects came up in discussion during a meeting presenting plans for a treatment plant that would supply water to some 30,000 people in north-central Montana. The meeting Tuesday in Chester presented draft plans for the water treatment plant that will be built at Tiber Reservoir as part of the Rocky Boy's/North Central Montana Regional Water System. Deon Stockert of Advanced Engineering and Environmental Services said finding funding...
Havre Daily News/Nikki Carlson On Tuesday evening in the Duck Inn Olympic Room, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Tom Sawatzke opens a meeting with a Powerpoint presentation summing up reasons the bureau closed fishing access at the Fresno Dam spillway. While he made no promises, a U. S. Bureau of Reclamation representative told a Havre crowd Tuesday that there is a chance to move fishing closer to Fresno Dam. "I'm trying to tell you that we have a responsibility to provide a secure facility — that is kind of a gray definition ...
Havre Daily News/Lindsay Brown The Fresno Dam spillway Wednesday afternoon — fishing access beneath the spillway has been restricted since 2001. Seven months after a public meeting was held in Havre to hear comments on reopening the spillway at Fresno Dam for fishing and other recreation, a representative of the Bureau of Reclamation said the federal agency that oversees operations of the dam west of Havre is still considering its options. "Right now, we are working through a number of options that we are hopeful will be c...
Montana's junior U. S. senator is again pushing for action on water in the region, sending a letter to the federal Office of Management and Budget and to the Secretary of the Interior urging money for Montana regional water projects be included in the next budget request. In his letter to Secretary Ken Salazar and OMB Deputy Director for Management and Budget, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said significant investments were made in the Rocky Boy's-North Central Montana Regional Water System and the Fort Peck-Dry Prairie water...
Havre Daily News/Nikki Carlson In this May 9 photograph, a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation sign cautions anglers to not fish any closer to the Fresno Dam at the Fresno Reservoir. Fishing near the dam, a prime location for catching walleye, was restricted by the bureau after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The U. S. Bureau of Reclamation has agreed to listen to local comments on its restriction of access below Fresno Dam west of Havre, with a public meeting slated for next Tuesday evening in Havre. BOR and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., ann...
The chair of a local Native American tribe was in Washington Tuesday to urge support for a bill Montana's U. S. senators wrote to provide money for rural water projects. "If I could leave the members of this committee with one impression, it would be for you to understand how difficult life is when you have no assurances that when you turn the water on in your house that water will in fact come out of the tap or be safe to drink, " Bruce Sunchild Sr., council chair of the Chippewa Cree Tribe of Rocky Boy's Indian...
