BIA approves Tribes Waste Management amendments

FORT HALL — The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes were recently notified by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) that amendments to the Tribes waste management regulations had been approved despite objections by local counties and the FMC Corporation.
The BIA approval came in a February 24 letter from Northwest Regional Director Stan Speakes, who noted that the 2005 Tribal Waste Management Act and amendments enacted by the Tribes Nov. 24 apply to the entire Fort Hall Reservation, including all non-Indian owned lands. The BIA had received letters from the Bannock County Commissioners, a planning and zoning attorney for Power County and counsel for FMC Corp. objecting to the tribes’ assertion of jurisdiction over non-members under the act.
Speakes noted the while the U.S. Supreme Court has specifically determined that Tribes lack criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians, he noted that recent court decisions tend to support the ability of tribes “to seek to protect its members from noxious uses that threaten tribal welfare or security, or from nonmember conduct on the land that does the same,” quoting from a related 2008 court decision.
Tribal leaders say the BIA’s letter supports the need for consistent laws on reservations regardless of whether residents or Indian or non-Indian. “The primary purpose of the tribal waste management act is to safeguard human health and the environment from hazardous waste sites in our area,” said Fort Hall Business Council Chairman Alonzo Coby.
“We appreciate the BIA’s clarification of the Tribes authority to protect their homelands and the people who live here.”
FMC operated an elemental phosphorus plant on the Fort Hall Reservation until 2001— the lands are now part of the 2,475-acre Eastern Michaud Flats Superfund Site.

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