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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 2001)
JANUARY 1, 2001 5 Indian Casinos Prompt Changes in Banking Market PHOENIX, AZ. (AP) - The eco nomic boom brought by casinos on Indian reservations has changed the Native American banking market. Mainstream banks historically have not wanted to do business on reservations because a bank's abil ity to repossess property does not ex tend to reservations. At the same time, reservation resi dents cannot pledge homes as collat eral because the Tribe owns them. Now banks are examining ways to finance restaurants, hotels and shops to serve the increasing num ber of people visiting Tribal land. "Right now we are doing a lot of lending in the gaming area, but it is just the start," said Daniel Lewis, In late 2000, nine banks in Arizona helped form the nation's first nonprofit corporation to make consumer and small business loans to members of the states 21 Tribes. The corporation, Arizona Native American Community Development, is funded by the banks. Senior Vice President for Native American financial services at Bank of America in Phoenix. Lewis' office serves Tribes across the country. Bank of America, the nation's second-largest bank, has made more than $1.5 billion in loans to the Na tive American community over the past five years, most of it to finance casinos. In Arizona, about $300 mil lion in loans have been made. Only about 10 banks in the United States are owned or controlled by American Indians, according to the North American Native Bankers As sociation. "The Native American market is a tremendously underserved market," said James Ballentine, Director of the Center for Community Development for the American Bankers Associa tion, based in Washington, D.C. In late 2000, nine banks in Arizona helped form the nation's first non profit corporation to make consumer and small business loans to members of the state's 21 Tribes. The corpo ration, Arizona Native American Community Development, is funded by the banks. Tribes wanting to participate will have a committee to review and grant loans. The committees will structure loans according to Tribal laws and then act as go-betweens if disputes arise. Paiutes want Groundwater " The Moapa Tribe has not participated in the least They're in the basement while other people are in the penthouse... Its in the public ' welfare to somehow alleviate the historic Injustice that has been done to the Tribe. Steve Chestnut, Seattle-based attorney LAS VEGAS, NV. (AP) - The cash strapped Moapa Paiutes have made an impassioned plea for groundwa ter supplies for an electricity genera tion project that could offset what they call decades of ill treatment. Tens of millions of dollars in rev enues from a water-cooled power plant could fund new health facili ties, a senior center, improved sewer lines and college scholarships for the Tribe, Tribal Chairwoman Candice Grayman told Arizona State Engi neer Hugh Ricci recently. The Moapa Paiutes, in 1875, were forced from their 2 million acres of ancestral lands onto what today is a 70,565-acre reservation northeast of Las Vegas. "We need to send our kids to school so they can come back and help us on the reservation," Grayman said at the hearing. The Las Vegas Valley Water Dis trict opposes the Tribe's request to pump groundwater from beneath its reservation, saying a plan to use Moapa Valley-area groundwater for urban expansion could be imperiled. Surviving on meager revenues from a fireworks shop and a small casino on Interstate 15, the Tribe long has sat in the shadow of Las Vegas' ongoing economic boom, Seattle-based attorney Steve Chestnut told Ricci. "The Moapa Tribe has not partici pated in the least," he said. "They're in the basement while other people are in the penthouse... It's in the public welfare to somehow alleviate the historic injustice that has been done to the Tribe." The Paiutes want Ricci to designate the cooling of the proposed plant as a preferred use for groundwater from the California Wash Basin, which encompasses their reservation. The Tribe would lease the ground water to San Jose, California-based Calpine Corp., which wants to build the plant and use the cool water to recondense steam the plant would use to turn some generating tur bines. The recondensed steam could be reused within the facility. Cooling the plant with water would allow the plant to produce as much as 20 percent more electricity than plants cooled with'ambient air, Calpine Project Development Man ager John Doyle told Ricci recently. The preferred use designation could give the Indians' application priority over the Las Vegas Water District's competing claim on the same basin. Ricci will consider the application to pump the water after he rules on the preferred use application. The water lease and other plant revenues could generate as much as $200 million over 35 years for the Tribe, revenue Tribal officials said is sorely needed. Under Nevada law, groundwater supplies are considered a public re source made available by the state engineer to anyone who can put them to a productive use without harming nearby wells. Generally, whoever stakes the earliest claim to water supplies wins the right to use them first. Attorneys for the Las Vegas and Moapa Valley Water Districts argued recently that designating plant cool ing, as a preferred use would over ride that central precept, challeng ing a fundamental provision of West ern water law. "I think you're going to open up a Pandora's box of problems," Moapa District Attorney Bob Marshall said. "I think you have to treat the Tribe like you would everybody else. All people coming before the state engi neer have to be treated equally." The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1908 that Indian Tribes have the right to streams and rivers running through their land, and Arizona's highest court last year applied the principle known as the Winters Doc trine to groundwater supplies. Chestnut said the Moapa Tribe could exercise its rights under the doctrine if it cannot reach accord with the State of Nevada. Fish Trap Stakes tell Ancient Story Most property owners are deathly afraid of finding Indian artifacts, fearful theyll be restricted from using their land. To us, its a rich gift we've been given. Ralph Munro, Washington Secretary of State OLYMPIA, WA. (AP) - Muddy and barnacle-encrusted, 440 cedar stakes jut from the mud in Eld In let, offering a telling glimpse of salmon harvests hundreds of years ago. Newly completed carbon dating of one of the fish trap stakes near the ancient Squaxin Island Tribal vil lage reveal it was embedded in the lower inlet between 1450 and 1520, said Dale Croes, a South Puget Sound Community College Anthro pology Professor. The fish trap is the latest in a se ries of discoveries at what is fast becoming one of the most significant American Indian archaeological sites in Puget Sound. The site at the southernmost reaches of the sound is actually three sites in one: a prehistoric vil lage called qwu? qwes, a buried shell midden and two fish traps just downstream of the village site. "This was a place to gather clams and salmon this was a place to come together," said Rhonda Foster, Director of the Squaxin Tribal Heri tage and Culture department. Today it is the Mud Bay property and home of Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro, who for the past two years has cooperated with the Tribe and the local community college in exploring the site. Among the items already un earthed are pieces of a woven cedar bark fishing net the first of its kind ever found, Croes said. Also .uncovered were basket-making tools, bone spear points and cut ting tools made from elk antlers. "Most property owners are deathly afraid of finding Indian artifacts, fearful they'll be restricted from us ing their land," Munro said. "To us, it's a rich gift we've been given." Foster stood on the banks of lower Eld Inlet recently and explained how the fish traps worked hundreds of years ago on cool, foggy fall days. The cedar stakes were pounded into the mudflats, close enough to gether to form a wooden curtain across a small cove and a tributary to what is now called Huston Creek. At high tide, sockeye, chum and coho salmon returning to spawn in the streams would pool behind the wooden barriers. Tribal fishers would seal off the opening in the traps with wood plank doors. As the tide receded through thin gaps in the stakes, the fish would be trapped. Tribal members would pull hundreds if not thousands of fish from the water and begin the task of cleaning and processing them for storage and future use. Munro said he looked at the stakes for years, assuming they were rem nants of some project by early white settlers. Croes said there are very few in digenous fish traps documented in Puget Sound. "There's very little known about fish traps in Washington State," Croes said. Settlers probably pulled many out of the water. "The unique thing is that this one has never been touched," Munro said. Munro envisions the day when the fish traps and village site can be educational laboratories. School children have already been permit ted to visit the site. The Squaxin Tribe is more than halfway home in a fund-raising campaign for its $3.6 million Tribal heritage museum and research cen ter, where many of the artifacts from qwu? qwes and other area archaeo logical sites are to be displayed.
