16
AUGUST 1, 2020
Smoke Signals
Senate Indian Affairs Committee
advances Reservation Act fix
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S.
Senate Committee on Indian Af-
fairs advanced on Wednesday, July
29, a bill that would correct an error
made in a 1994 piece of legislation
that adversely affected the Grand
Ronde Reservation Act.
The legislation would allow the
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
to address any future survey errors
discovered on its original Reserva-
tion with the federal government.
Grand Ronde Tribal Chairwom-
an Cheryle A. Kennedy testified
before the House Subcommittee
for Indigenous Peoples in early
February seeking to correct the
mistake written into the Grand
Ronde Reservation Act in 1994. The
Tribe submitted written testimony
to the Senate because of the current
COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
The Bureau of Land Management
discovered a survey error on the
Grand Ronde Reservation that dates
back to 1871. The error was dis-
covered after passage of the Grand
Ronde Reservation Act in 1988 that
returned 9,811 acres to the Tribe.
Surveyor David Thompson had
incorrectly surveyed the eastern
boundary of the Reservation, miss-
ing 84 acres that should have been
included. The land also was excluded
from a 1904 sale of unallotted lands
within the Reservation and Grand
Ronde was not compensated for it.
Until the error was discovered,
BLM treated the land as Oregon and
California Railroad Grant Lands
and permitted private companies to
harvest timber on the acreage.
After being informed of the sur-
vey error, the Grand Ronde Tribe
determined the parcel, called the
Thompson Strip, was unmanage-
able because of narrow boundaries
and divided ownership interests.
The Tribe agreed to accept a 240-
acre parcel of grant lands adjacent
to the Grand Ronde Reservation in
exchange and surrender its claims
to the Thompson Strip.
However, the Department of the
Interior in 1994 “developed broad
language that relinquished any
future claims of this type within
the state of Oregon” by the Grand
Ronde Tribe.
“In agreeing to this land exchange
in 1994, the intent of the parties
was for Grand Ronde to relinquish
its rights only to the Thompson
Strip,” Kennedy testified in Feb-
ruary. “There was no intention by
BLM or BIA officials involved in
this land swap to extinguish the
Tribe’s land claim rights for the
entire state of Oregon.”
Kennedy said the Tribe only dis-
covered the issue recently while
working on a different amendment
to the Reservation Act.
House Resolution 4888 was
sponsored by Oregon Reps. Kurt
Schrader, Suzanne Bonamici, Peter
DeFazio and Earl Blumenauer. It
would replace the phrase “state of
Oregon” with the phrase “84 acres
known as the Thompson Strip” in
the Grand Ronde Reservation Act.
The companion bill in the U.S.
Senate is supported by Sens. Ron
Wyden and Jeff Merkley. The bill
now goes to the full Senate for pos-
sible approval.
“The United States made errors
in surveying Grand Ronde lands,
and it then took away from Grand
Ronde its right to be compensated
for these errors. That’s not fair. I’d
like to thank Sens. Merkley and
Wyden for working to correct this
injustice,” Kennedy said.
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