continued, Weâre not the only ones who are going to be romanced. Your story about that New York outfit is just the first. Theyâll be all over the local officials. Yourself and the county commission and the city council. Youâre going to get a lot of arguments about how you have to supervise us and look after us poor dumb Indians so we donât all get drunk and tear the place up.
I can handle that, Sheridan said. The rest of the commissioners can too.
After breakfast they got in Cloudâs pickup, even dustier than Sheridanâs, and drove the twenty miles or so down to Ignacio. Whatever money was on its way, Sheridan noted, had yet to be spent on reservation improvements. Much of the territory was open, undeveloped, and possessed but little in the way of growing things. Ignacio, the tribal headquarters, was home to only a few shops and stores and not much affected by late-twentieth-century progress.
Cloud drove up and down the dusty streets, pointing out where a new grade school would be built and where the modest hospital, not much more than a clinic, would be substantially expanded. Sheridan imagined his friendâs visions of up-to-date medical equipment, full-scale surgery capabilities, and treatment for the routine illnesses of a denied people. As they passed, Sheridan and Cloud recognized familiar faces and gave solemn waves.
As Cloud drove him back to Durango, Sheridan said, Leonard, something tells me the politics of this revolution are not going down quietly. Too much at stake. I have a terrible feeling some people are going to get trampled by this stampede before itâs all over.
Cloud nodded in agreement. Iâm concerned about our people. But some of you people there in Durango better be careful as well. We have a saying that thereâs no clear skies without a storm first.
11.
Water and energy finally came together for the Southern Utes in the 1980s and 1990s, with the help of Congress and the federal courts. The semidormant AnimasâLa Plata water project could not by now justify itself solely on traditional agricultural economic grounds. Theoretically, at least, the federal Bureau of Reclamation had to make the semblance of a case for any new dam on the grounds that it would repay its costs through stimulation of agricultural development. Despite Reclamationâs exploration of elaborate pump-storage methods, whereby water would be pumped from the Animas to a high storage reservoir and then released when needed for crops and consumers, the economics of the AnimasâLa Plata project were making increasingly less sense.
Then federal energy policy began to change in response to OPEC oil embargoes of the late 1970s. And Indian tribes began to assert their rights to control their own energy resources and to demand fair treatment where water resources were concerned. In 1974 the Southern Utes, partly under the advice of their attorney, Sam Maynard, demanded a moratorium on the development of their vast natural gas deposits, and a year later they joined a consortium of two dozen Indian tribes in forming CERT, the Council of Energy Resource Tribes. Almost everything about Native American tribes involves a certain degree of irony, and CERT, modeled on the OPEC consortium that had brought the US economy to its knees, was no different. In contrast to its Persian Gulf model, however, it represented the original Americans who now laid claim to energy supplies under their largely forsaken reservations.
In response, in 1982 Congress passed the Indian Mineral Development Act, acknowledging the authority of the various tribes to negotiate their own mineral leases without the oversight of the Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs. Coincidentally, that same year the Supreme Court ruled that the Apache Tribe had the right to impose a severance tax on oil and gas produced from its land. For an energy-rich tribe like the Southern Utes, this judicial decision greatly
I can handle that, Sheridan said. The rest of the commissioners can too.
After breakfast they got in Cloudâs pickup, even dustier than Sheridanâs, and drove the twenty miles or so down to Ignacio. Whatever money was on its way, Sheridan noted, had yet to be spent on reservation improvements. Much of the territory was open, undeveloped, and possessed but little in the way of growing things. Ignacio, the tribal headquarters, was home to only a few shops and stores and not much affected by late-twentieth-century progress.
Cloud drove up and down the dusty streets, pointing out where a new grade school would be built and where the modest hospital, not much more than a clinic, would be substantially expanded. Sheridan imagined his friendâs visions of up-to-date medical equipment, full-scale surgery capabilities, and treatment for the routine illnesses of a denied people. As they passed, Sheridan and Cloud recognized familiar faces and gave solemn waves.
As Cloud drove him back to Durango, Sheridan said, Leonard, something tells me the politics of this revolution are not going down quietly. Too much at stake. I have a terrible feeling some people are going to get trampled by this stampede before itâs all over.
Cloud nodded in agreement. Iâm concerned about our people. But some of you people there in Durango better be careful as well. We have a saying that thereâs no clear skies without a storm first.
11.
Water and energy finally came together for the Southern Utes in the 1980s and 1990s, with the help of Congress and the federal courts. The semidormant AnimasâLa Plata water project could not by now justify itself solely on traditional agricultural economic grounds. Theoretically, at least, the federal Bureau of Reclamation had to make the semblance of a case for any new dam on the grounds that it would repay its costs through stimulation of agricultural development. Despite Reclamationâs exploration of elaborate pump-storage methods, whereby water would be pumped from the Animas to a high storage reservoir and then released when needed for crops and consumers, the economics of the AnimasâLa Plata project were making increasingly less sense.
Then federal energy policy began to change in response to OPEC oil embargoes of the late 1970s. And Indian tribes began to assert their rights to control their own energy resources and to demand fair treatment where water resources were concerned. In 1974 the Southern Utes, partly under the advice of their attorney, Sam Maynard, demanded a moratorium on the development of their vast natural gas deposits, and a year later they joined a consortium of two dozen Indian tribes in forming CERT, the Council of Energy Resource Tribes. Almost everything about Native American tribes involves a certain degree of irony, and CERT, modeled on the OPEC consortium that had brought the US economy to its knees, was no different. In contrast to its Persian Gulf model, however, it represented the original Americans who now laid claim to energy supplies under their largely forsaken reservations.
In response, in 1982 Congress passed the Indian Mineral Development Act, acknowledging the authority of the various tribes to negotiate their own mineral leases without the oversight of the Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs. Coincidentally, that same year the Supreme Court ruled that the Apache Tribe had the right to impose a severance tax on oil and gas produced from its land. For an energy-rich tribe like the Southern Utes, this judicial decision greatly
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