Help From Indian Agency Sought In Land Dispute

The lawyer for nine Nez Perce Indian heirs involved in a property dispute caused by a century-old surveying error says his clients want their land back and the Bureau of Indian Affairs must help.

But non-Indians who claim the acreage near Kamiah contend they bought it in good faith and want compensation if it’s taken.

The land overlooks the Clearwater River across from the sacred Nez Perce site called the Heart of the Monster.

“My clients feel this is another example of non-Indian people taking Indian land,” Judd Carusone of the Idaho Legal Aid Services Indian Law Unit in Lewiston said Thursday.

“The people who are currently on the property have a remedy,” he said. “They should go back to the people from whom they bought the land and demand compensation for faulty title.”

Similar disputes could spread throughout the Nez Perce Reservation, especially if the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land Management continue to resurvey land, Carusone said.

That also is a concern for Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, who has asked Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to delay any Bureau of Indian Affairs action on the Kamiah dispute until after a scheduled May 25 congressional hearing.

Carusone said the Bureau of Indian Affairs planned to send letters to the non-Indians billing them for trespassing on the disputed land. But Sharon Yepa, acting superintendent of the bureau’s North Idaho Indian Agency in Lapwai, said that action was put on hold Thursday.

Yepa said nothing would be done until Babbitt responds to Craig’s letter.

The non-Indians, who have warranty deeds filed with Idaho County for the property, said they would refuse to pay any trespassing compensation bill.

The dispute has been brewing for six years. But only recently did the non-Indians involved go public, saying the system had failed to resolve the problem.

No one challenges the fact that there was a surveying error.