The federal government has agreed to pay the Navajo Nation more than $500 million to settle claims that the government mismanaged Navajo land — 14 million acres, more than half of its total holdings — for six decades.
That’s less than $10 million per year, including accrued interest. There are more than 300,000 members of the nation, and about two-thirds live on tribal land.
The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American tribe, with more than 300,000 members and a reservation that spans 27,000 square miles in three states, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. But some tribal members who live in remote areas lack modern amenities — even electricity and running water.
The agreement will be signed Friday in Window Rock, AZ. The lawsuit was filed in 2006 but it stretches back to 1946 in time. At its heart was the low rates the federal government charges private interests that mine natural resources such as coal, uranium, oil and gas.
It would be great to see an accounting of the legal fees DOJ accumulated while fighting this.
“When the government negotiated the contracts, they didn’t do a good job in getting a fair market value,” said Andrew Sandler, a lawyer who represents the Navajo Nation. “The government didn’t do a good job in monitoring the extraction to make sure the proper royalties were paid, and the government didn’t do a good job in investing the money.”
In October 2011, the feds settled with the Osage tribe in Oklahoma for $380 million; again, the 11-years-in-the-making case claimed asset mismanagement.
Last year, the federal government agreed to pay $1 billion to 41 tribes in additional management-related lawsuits.
To provide an idea of the scope:
The Interior Department manages almost 56 million acres of trust lands for federally recognized tribes and more than 100,000 leases on those lands. The department also manages about 2,500 tribal trust accounts for more than 250 tribes.
More at the Los Angeles Times, the Las Cruces News, the NY Times and the Washington Post.
Photo: Flickr, CC
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