I should like to emphasize at this point, Mr. Chairman, that from the very beginning of this operation following receipt of the President's directive, we have been in close and friendly association with the Engineers, beginning with a White House meeting in late 1961, within a few days after the President's letter was written and continuing on with meetings in my office, meetings in the engineer offices here in Washington, and repeated contacts with the Pittsburg office and Salamanca, between Mr. Carney and the engineering representatives there. With this background and with the permission of the subcommittee, I should like to turn my attention in numerical sequence to various sections of H.R. 1794.

Section 2(a), page 2, refers to direct compensation for the taking of land

Mr. HALEY. Mr. Commissioner, are you directing your remarks to bill H.R. 1794?

Dr. NASH. Yes, sir; and my remarks henceforth are directed toward sections of that bill, so as not to involve any confusion

Mr. HALEY. You are aware of the fact that we have three bills? Dr. NASH. Yes, sir; but my remarks here are directed to an analysis of the pertinent portions of H.R. 1794.

Section 2(b), page 3 of the bill, refers to direct compensation for the taking of homes, barns, fences, wells, and other structures and improvements. The estimates of the Seneca Nation were made by Empire Appraisal Associates. The matter of direct compensation, of course, is not of direct concern to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This is a matter between the Engineers and the Seneca Nation.

I should like the record to show, however, that the Bureau does not challenge Empire Appraisal Associates' figure of $5,898,886 for the land and the improvements thereon. It should also be explained for the record that individual Seneca Indians own the improvements on their land, but the Seneca Nation itself owns the land. It is for this reason and this reason only that the Senecas themselves have broken down the Empire figure into $4,735,168 for the land and $1,163,718 for the improvements.

Section 2(c), page

Mr. BERRY. Are these figures contested by the Bureau?

Dr. NASH. We are not contesting these figures and it is not our province to do so.

Mr. BERRY. I don't mean the Bureau, I mean the corps.

Dr. NASH. Of Engineers?

Mr. BERRY. Yes.

Dr. NASH. The Engineers are in the process of negotiating for the parcels of land and in the previous testimony, when I was listening in the back of the room, I believe the Engineers indicated that they did not desire to have a legislative determination of this value, but to be free to negotiate and to bargain.

Section 2(c), page 3, refers to the compensation for indirect damages. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has had extensive experience in estimating the indirect damages arising from the taking of Indian land, especially in the Missouri River Basin.

Our estimate of $1,442,350, excluding the value of river bottom sand and gravel, is based upon Report No. 175 prepared by our Missouri River Basin investigations staff.

Mr. HALEY. Mr. Commissioner, would you give those figures again, please?

Dr. NASH. $1,442,350.

Mr. HALEY. Thank you.

Dr. NASH. And, Mr. Chairman, you will find that figure in Report No. 175, which we submitted to the committee with a number of copies about a month ago; and we, of course, have more.

A copy of this report, No. 175, was sent on July 8, 1963, to the Corps of Engineers. A copy has also been placed in the record, by reference, of these hearings. Included in section 2(c) and in our Report No. 175 are such matters of immediate importance to the Senecas as the expenses of moving and reestablishing individual dwellings and other buildings, tribal buildings, the loss of earnings by individuals during relocation, the added cost of acquiring land on which to place the homes of those who will be flooded out, the expenses of site planning and development, and the provision of water utilities for the relocated homes. The cost of individual sewerage for the relocated dwellings is not included in the indirect damages. The Senecas themselves did not wish it that way, but it is included in the cost of replacement dwellings elsewhere in this report.

Mr. Chairman, I recommend this committee give favorable consideration to and this Congress approve $1,442,350 indirect damages. Section 3(a), page 3 of the bill provides for the payment of an indefinite sum of money by the Seneca Nation to individual Indians for their interest as assignees in the lands to be taken. This has been proposed in the legislation because the individual Indians desire congressional assurance that the amounts due them by the Seneca Nation will actually be paid. These amounts, based upon negotiation between the Corps of Engineers and the Seneca Nation to be approved by the Secretary of the Interior will be inserted in a schedule. I should like to emphasize at this point that the sum of the amounts in this schedule will not represent additional money, but will come out of the moneys to be paid to the Seneca Nation under section 2 at page 2. Inclusion of the amount, however, tends to fix the liability of the Seneca Nation to the individual assignees, and for that reason the Senecas themselves desire this to be a part of the legislation. Following the recommendation of the Senecas and their attorney, we concur and recommend that the amount of $1 million be inserted in the blank on line 18, page 3.

Mr. BERRY. Which fund would that come out of?

Dr. NASH. This would come out of the direct damages.
Mr. BERRY. Out of the $5 million?

Dr. NASH. That's right. Not out of indirect.

I should also like to note for the guidance of the committee and the record that the bill uses the word "allottees," and this is a word in common use on the Seneca Reservation, and it is apparently in common use generally, because the Engineers in their testimony here used the word "allottees," but there are no allotments on the Allegany Reservation in the sense in which that word is conventionally used in association with Indian lands. These are not allotments pursuant to the Allotment Act of 1887 or any related legislation.

On the Allegany Reservation, aboriginal title remains in the Seneca Nation. The individual Indians have merely occupancy and use rights that should correctly be called tribal assignments. And they,

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by customary law of the Seneca Nation and on the Allegany Reservation, these assignments-temporary use right assignments from the tribe are inherited as personal property, but the actual standing is that of use permits by the council, the governing body of the Seneca Nation.

Section 3(c), page 4, provides for the compensation of individual Indians by the Seneca Nation for their moving expenses and minor loss of wages. This again is not an added item. It is included in the indirect damages to be paid under section 2(c), page 3. We recommend that the amount of $127,050 be inserted in line 17, page 4. Mr. HALEY. $127,050?

Dr. NASH. Yes, sir.

Mr. BERRY. Would that be a limitation, or are you going to set aside $127,000 for this purpose?

Dr. NASH. This would give congressional authorization and direction to these Seneca Nations to guarantee $127,050 of moving expenses and wage losses to individual Senecas.

Mr. BERRY. Which would revert to the indirect damage in the event it were not spent?

Dr. NASH. Yes.

Section 4, pages 5 and 6, provides for assistance designed to improve the economic, social, and educational conditions of enrolled members of the Seneca Nation. We shall henceforth refer to it as the rehabilita

tion program.

The Bureau has explored the impact of the taking of land upon a community deeply attached to the religious and spiritual values associated with the ancestral homeland. This is especially true where the taking virtually cuts the reservation in two, leaving little more than hill sites. And actually if the pool should reach maximum or close to it, it would be cut into much more than two parts. It would be repeatedly fragmented.

Furthermore, when the proposed New York State Southern Tier Expressway comes into being, the reservation will again be cut, thus making four completely separate parts.

Moreover, seasonal fluctuations in the pool level will result in extensive mudflats in the upper end of the reservoir, and it is in this area that the bulk of the people and the residual lands will be located. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has also appraised the factors of social and economic betterment-such as housing-community facilities that Congress has elsewhere been willing to include as rehabilitation assistance.

With the committee's permission, I should like to defer discussion of section 4 (a) and (b) until we have completed other matters which are easier to discuss.

Subsection (c) refers to the building of homes for those Indians to be relocated. This is the most important and most immediately urgent problem of all, for the Senecas have been notified by the Corps of Engineers that the taking area must be cleared by October 1, 1964. Construction of new dwellings at the two relocation sites that the Senecas themselves have selected, Jimersontown and Steamburg, must be undertaken as early as possible in 1964. The Seneca Nation has already purchased the claims of the assignees who occupy this land. The demands of time make it necessary that the preparation for housing construction be completed during the 1963 construction season.

A comprehensive survey conducted by the Seneca Nation itself shows that within the taking area there are 130 families. Ten of these families desire cash settlement. The remaining 120 families desire new homes.

May I say, Mr. Chairman, that this report by the Seneca Nation. is consistent with the Bureau's own findings by the Missouri River Basin investigations staff.

Design of the houses sought by the relocated families cannot begin until congressional action has disclosed the scope of assistance the Senecas can rely upon to supplement the payments received from the Corps of Engineers for the homes in the taking area.

May I depart from this text, Mr. Chairman, to say that the Seneca's relocation committee, a subcommittee of the council, has done an extraordinary job of examining the needs of the individual families, of providing for the values that are already there in their use rights, the value of housing that already exists, and the needs of the size of family and the improvements that are already there.

Speaking for the Bureau, I want to concur in the findings of the Seneca committee.

Architects estimates have been obtained of the cost of constructing homes adequate to the needs of the individual families. The architects recommend that the that in addition to the moneys to be paid by the Corps of Engineers for the homes to be flooded out, $1,029,000 will be required. That figure is $1,029,000.

A congressional authorization for this sum is needed. We recommend it.

Subsection 4(d) on page 6 provides for the construction of community buildings. These would be in the nature of municipal buildings and would house tribal offices as well as a meeting place, dining hall, and gymnasium. Two are proposed by the Seneca Nation. One would be erected in the Allegheny and the other on the Cattaraugus Reservation, 40 miles away. They would serve two separate communities. Two are needed. The erection of these buildings would do much to restore the community life of the Senecas and I recommend this item to the Congress for consideration without fixing a dollar value.

Subsection (e), page 6, concerns Indian education, on which the Senecas have placed primary emphasis in planning their rehabilitation program. They plan to establish an educational scholarship fund to finance vocational training, adult education, and higher education for Seneca youths over a 20-year period; this is not a one-shot or 1-year proposition.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has assisted in this aspect of Seneca's planning by furnishing the consulting services of a specialist in educational programs. The cost of these educational programs has been estimated by the Senecas with our concurrence at $2,300,000. This sum would provide for a 20-year scholarship program beginning with 55 participants in 1964 and increasing gradually to 115 participants

in 1983.

If the number of applicants for the various aspects of the programvocational, adult, and other-should follow the anticipated schedule, then the principal sum with its interest would be exhausted in 1983. If the demand for the services should be less than estimated by the

Senecas with our technical help-and these are only estimates-then the program would go on for more than 20 years; it would go on until the $2,300,000 has been exhausted.

Mr. BERRY. Would this $2.3 million be a project charge?

Dr. NASH. No, sir. As proposed, this would be a rehabilitation fund charge and would not be a charge against the project. Out of a special fund to be appropriated by the Congress pursuant to the authority contained in this bill.

Mr. BERRY. Then what of the funds of the funds we have talked of so far, what would be project funds?

Dr. NASH. Direct and indirect damages, and the rehabilitation, everything in section 4 would be special. Housing, education, the community centers, and others that I shall touch on later. Recreational and industrial development.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Do I understand from that you are not classifying housing as a project cost?

Dr. NASH. We are not classifying housing as a project cost, but the total housing cost is actually in the operation of things divided between project cost and the rehabilitation program. Thus, the part of the direct cost of the taking is compensation for the dwellings and other improvements on the assigned lands. The figure of $1,029,000 is a net figure representing the difference between the cost of providing new and improved housing for those who are being flooded out, minus the sums to be paid by the engineers for the buildings as improvements. Mr. BERRY. I still don't know why housing should not come out of the project cost. Why is that not a project cost?

Dr. NASH. Let me put it like this, sir. The value of the existing housing will be paid for by the Corps of Engineers as a direct cost assigned to the project. But the Senecas being dislocated are asking for special damages, in which we concur. We think this is a part of the President's directive. Therefore, the $1,029,000 represents the cost of improved housing in view of the extreme dislocation of the Senecas due to the taking. For this reason we are agreeable to having it be a rehabilitation cost rather than a direct project cost.

Let us say that non-Indians on the Pennsylvania side of the taking are not receiving this kind of benefit. We are by this means treating Indian land in the way it should be as being different from the other land.

Mr. EDMONDSON. That $1,029,000 comes to about an $8,600 betterment figure for each family for its housing. Isn't that about what it adds up to?

Dr. NASH. Yes, sir. This is based on a calculation provided by the engineers which we can supply for the record.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Is it intended to provide a land base for a garden or keeping chickens or livestock or something like that?

Dr. NASH. There will be very substantial plots, 1-acre plots with individual dwellings, community water, individual sewage that is tanks and drain fields-and the number of bedrooms would be scaled to the needs of the family, going from one to five bedrooms, so that the houses would not be identical in size, but would be tailored to fit the needs of the families as they exist at the present time.

Mr. EDMONDSON. But it would amount to a considerable upgrading and raise in living conditions for a good number of the 120 families?