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.