Indian land claims to be discussed in D.C.
Apr. 12, 2000

By R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

Officials from seven counties facing Indian land claims or related issues will appeal to their federal representatives for help today in Washington, D.C.

Oneida County Executive Ralph J. Eannace Jr. said the daylong trip was organized by the ad hoc land-claims committee of the New York State Association of Counties. He chairs the committee.

The visit comes a week after the collapse of efforts to negotiate a settlement of the Oneida Indian land claim against Oneida and Madison counties.

State and federal representatives last week asked the U.S. Justice Department to bow out of the Oneida land claim, in which the department supports the Oneida Indian position.

Eannace said the counties participating today are Cayuga, Madison, Oneida, Seneca, Greene, Sullivan and Ulster. He said Onondaga, Erie and Cattaraugus counties also were invited to send delegations.

“We are not opposed to Indian rights,” Eannace said. “We’re making sure they are balanced by protection for (non-Indian) landowners.”

He said issues to be discussed include the sovereign government status granted to American Indian reservations, whether Indian lands are subject to property and sales taxes and land-use regulations, and the legality of gaming compacts.

Madison County Board of Supervisors Chairman Rocco DiVeronica said Congress already knows what the issues are, “but if we go down in strength, they’ll listen to us.”

He said he and Eannace also want to meet with officials from the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss dredging being done by the Oneida Nation of New York on Oneida Lake without a federal permit.

Oneida Nation spokesman Mark Emery previously said the Nation is consulting with the corps about the dredging.

One New York jury already has ruled in one land-claim case.

The Cayuga Indian Nation and Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma sued New York state for compensation for 64,027 acres in Cayuga and Seneca counties that the state took from it two centuries ago around the northern tip of Cayuga Lake.

A jury awarded the tribes nearly $37 million. U.S. District Judge Neal P. McCurn is expected to make a final damage award next summer.

Oneida tribes from New York, Wisconsin and Canada are suing the state and Madison and Oneida counties for compensation for 250,000 acres in those two counties that the Nation claims was taken illegally from their ancestors by the state.

The Onondaga Indian Nation has said it plans to file a similar lawsuit this year on about 70,000 acres the state took from them.

The claim area includes almost all of Syracuse.