Landowners hoping to be part of Corps review
Landowners hoping to be part of Corps review
By MARVIN BAKER
EDITOR
Landowners who lost property when Missouri River dams were flooded are hoping to be part of a five-year, $25 million review of the 1944 Flood Control Act the Corps of Engineers is currently undertaking.
Marilyn Hudson, Parshall, represented the Land Owner Association of the Fort Berthold Reservation at a November meeting held in Bismarck. Other meetings have been held in Fort Pierre, S.D., and Kansas City, Kan. Mildred Fox Jordt represented the Three Affiliated Tribes in the Kansas City meeting and Roger Bird Bear attended and spoke at the Fort Pierre meeting.
The landowners represent property along five dams the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Project flooded in the late 1940s. They include Garrison, Oahe, Big Bend, Fort Randall and Gavins Point dams.
“We hope to become a part of the review and have asked that a focus group composed of land owners who owned land in the flooded area be established,” Hudson said. “The review is in its very early stages so I’m not sure when they will begin more in depth analysis of issues which are being discussed so far.”
The Garrison Dam and reservoir took 480,000 acres of land for its construction. Of that amount, 152,360 acres was Indian land on Fort Berthold of which 126,135 acres, or 83 percent, was allotted land.
The appraisals for the land was minimal with no value placed on subsurface rights. In other words, the Indian land owners received no compensation for their minerals.
Thus the Landowner Association of Fort Berthold has gone on record to seek recognition as a stakeholder group in this study.
