Columnist Susan Snyder: Landing money won’t stop issue

Monday, July 12, 2004 | 8:07 a.m.

Sometimes, it's just not about the money.

President George W. Bush last week signed a measure that distributes $145 million to Western Shoshone Indians to compensate for the loss of their ancestral lands.

"This has been our fear for many, many years -- that they would pass a law and start distributing the money," Julie Fishel, of the Western Shoshone Defense Project, said. "It creates a perception problem. People will think that the (land) issue is over, and it's not."

The defense project was created in 1991 to protect the rights of Mary and Carrie Dann, Shoshone sisters who refused to pay the Bureau of Land Management to graze their cattle on land the sisters say belonged to them under the 1863 Ruby Valley Treaty.

The BLM seized and sold 227 of the sisters' cattle in February 2003 and confiscated 500 horses from them in fall 2002.

The lands encompassed in the treaty cover most of Nevada, with the exception of its southern tip and an area in the northwest corner. In the 1863 document, the Shoshone agreed to settle into a ranching lifestyle and allow white people to use the land. But they did not cede its ownership. And that is the issue that Fishel's group continues to fight in court.

Organizers of the Western Shoshone Claims Steering Committee, a private grass-roots organization with no official council powers, have said Shoshones need the distribution money because many live in poverty and cannot afford the college educations and other amenities their children need.

Having to choose between one's legal rights and rent is a poor choice created by poor government policy, Fishel said.

"They shouldn't be put in this position in the first place. It's terrible to tear people apart like this," she said.

The payment, she said, doesn't void the tribe's ability or right to challenge the Ruby Valley Treaty violations or land title issues. But many may not realize that.

Federal officials opened the Shoshone trust account in 1979 for land they said that by 1872 had been taken out of Shoshone control by "gradual encroachment."

Bunk, Fishel said.

"There was nobody there back (in 1872). There's nobody out here now," she said of the remote central Nevada region. "Who's encroaching? The crickets?"

People who live in the West need to understand that the 19th-century Indian treaties aren't Wild West movie legends. They are government agreements regarding land title issues that have widespread impacts.

The Ruby Valley Treaty "could help everybody in the state," Fishel said. Part of the land included is Yucca Mountain, where the Department of Energy (DOE) hopes to one day open a nuclear waste repository.

"The treaty does not allow nuclear waste storage," she said. "They can't turn over the land to the DOE because they've got to show clear title. And they can't. It's never been litigated in a court of law."

The lawsuits over land title and other components of the treaty will continue. Members of the defense project and Shoshone leaders are regrouping to brainstorm.

"There is always hope," Fishel said. "The fight goes on."