The Bureau of Indian Affairs told the Osage Nation it would cost approximately $42 million to clean up environmental issues on the 43,000-acre Bluestem Ranch before the federal agency would consider putting the land into trust.
Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear said that scale of remediation on the Bluestem Ranch could take years, even decades and that he “strongly disagreed” with the report. He turned to Analytical Environmental Services (AES), a Sacramento, Calif.-based company, to review the BIA report and its accuracy.
Standing Bear said the BIA has continuously obstructed the Osage Nation for the past five years, whether it be oil and gas leases or fee-to-trust applications, and he is bypassing the BIA and going straight to the U.S. Senate. If the legislation successfully passes through the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, it would then be up for signature by the President.
“We are working to have special legislation introduced to the U.S. Senate, to place the Bluestem Ranch land into restricted Indian status in the name of the Osage Nation,” Standing Bear said. “That has never been done for a tribe in Oklahoma, at least that we know of.”
When land is put into trust status, the United States holds the land in their name for the benefit of the tribe. When land is in restricted status, the land belongs to the individual Indian, and it’s approved by the Secretary of the Interior. However, when the Osage Nation bought its reservation from the Cherokee Nation in 1872, the Nation went through the same process Standing Bear is proposing.
“Restricted land is what we’re all used to as individuals, as an individual we get our land held as restricted Indian land and it’s still under tribal jurisdiction, police, and we have court jurisdiction over Indian land,” he said. “I made the argument to Capitol Hill that we bought this land from the Cherokee Nation as the Osage Nation in 1872. And so, we should be able to keep the land in the name of the Osage Nation, instead of the United States of America. But, we will need for them to agree that it would be restricted in the name of the Osage Nation and that way the federal trust responsibility remains strong.”
Standing Bear said his office is currently working with the Nation’s Washington D.C. legal counsel, David Mullon, to introduce legislation to the U.S. Senate in the fall. But before the legislation is introduced, many caveats must be met, including a resolution of approval from the Osage Nation Congress.
He said the idea came during a trip to Washington D.C. when he and Osage Minerals Council Chairman Everett Waller met with attorneys and staff members from Sen. James Lankford’s (R-OK) office. Mullon said the response from Sen. Lankford and others has been “positive.”
BIA Bluestem Ranch Site Visit Report
The BIA’s Eastern Oklahoma Region’s Division of Environmental and Cultural Resources Management (DECRM) conducted a site visit on the Bluestem Ranch over a six-week period, starting Sept. 27, 2016 and ending on Nov. 2, 2016.
The DECRM issued a 26-page report of their findings to Standing Bear on March 1. The report contained data on abandoned oil wells, brine scars, oil stains, exposed pipelines, flow lines, and old above ground storage tanks.
According to the two-page May 26 letter to Standing Bear from AES, the site visit by the DECRM and their report was “puzzling,” and the amount of money the DECRM said the remediation would cost the Nation was “grossly overestimated.”
“The approximately $42,000,000 estimate for addressing hazardous materials issues on the property is based on unsubstantial assumptions and appears to be grossly overestimated,” according to the AES letter.
The DECRM’s review did not cover the entire 43,000-acre ranch. According to the DECRM’s report, they focused on 5 percent of the land, approximately 2,160 acres of randomly selected 80-acre tracts, and applied what it found to the entire ranch.
According to the DECRM’s findings:
– The Osage Agency’s fee-to-trust application for the Nation lacked information and that’s why the DECRM conducted its own site visit
– The five percent of land selected was made up of randomly selected twenty-six 80-acre tracts
– 61 abandoned, temporarily abandoned, or inactive wells were found
– seven unknown vertical pipes were found
– 13 injection or disposal wells were found
– 10 tank batteries, 35 active oil wells, six cement pads were found
– 58 recorded brine scars, with a notation that there were so many small brine scars that only those with more than 20 square feet coverage were recorded
– Recorded brine scars covered 558,323 square feet, or 12.81 acres of the 2,160 acres selected for the site visit
– Pipelines and flow lines were scattered throughout the site
– Oil staining was found at 62 sites, mainly around active oil equipment
AES disagreed with the DECRM’s assertion that the Osage Agency’s fee-to-trust application for the Nation “lacked information.” AES said the application was prepared in accordance with ASTM and Department of Interior standards.
AES took aerial photos of the property and visited various sites of interest, according to their review, and found that vast tracts of land on the ranch were “untouched by human activity.”
“… it is not appropriate to assume that petroleum production activity on 5% of the property should be extrapolated to the entire property. We believe that the approach taken by the DECRM has led to a conclusion that hazardous material issues on the property are more widespread than is actually the case,” according to AES.
As to the brine scars and oil stains, AES said that since the review was only done on 5 percent of the property, the DECRM’s estimation of the extent of damage may be “significantly overestimated.” The same case was made for the abandoned oil wells and tank batteries.
Standing Bear said he is not abandoning remediation on the Bluestem Ranch.
“I’m not abandoning the path of remediation of environmental, that is why we have retained AES. This is the first report they have prepared and they are going to be doing more work, a lot more work, on this matter for us,” he said. “It will be expensive and long term over the years. AES said it would be surprised if the cost of remediation is even half of what the BIA said.”
By
Shannon Shaw Duty
Original Publish Date: 2017-06-07 00:00:00
