Muckleshoots To Let Gravel Work Continue -- Auburn Officials Call Land Deal An Evasion

-- AUBURN

The Muckleshoots' dream of reclaiming their past, and the city of Auburn's dream of controlling its future, have clashed over the impending transfer of Frank Miles' gravel pit into tribal ownership.

For the Muckleshoot leaders, the transfer of the 180-acre Miles Sand and Gravel pit near Highway 18 signifies the righting of a historic wrong. They claimed the land was theirs.

For Auburn officials, who are now likely to lose all land-use jurisdiction over the pit, the land transfer appears to be a ploy by Miles to evade city environmental rules, and ends their hopes of converting the pit to valuable residential property.

Miles plans to lease back the gravel operation from the Muckleshoots under the land-transfer agreement announced last week.

Miles Sand and Gravel Co. has been mining gravel without a city permit since May. The firm finally turned in an application for a new permit in October.

But before the city had time to finish reviewing the application, Miles announced his firm had agreed to give the land to the tribe in exchange for a lease to continue mining.

Since tribal lands are normally exempt from local regulation, the transfer is likely to make the Auburn permit unnecessary.

This unusual arrangement between the gravel firm and the tribe is a result of the Muckleshoots' territorial claims against Miles' property.

Faced with the prospect of being sued for trespassing and for damaging tribal land, the gravel company agreed to negotiate the settlement, according to tribal and Miles officials.

But Auburn leaders, who have been negotiating with the gravel firm since May over the expired operating permit, say the deal is a sham. They say they will fight to keep jurisdiction over the pit, despite the transfer.

"This is obviously an attempt by Miles to get away from the public process, to get away from public scrutiny," said Auburn Mayor Bob Roegner.

Lisa Kittilsby, daughter of Frank Miles, denied that the firm is trying to dodge land-use requirements.

"The company wasn't even thinking about Auburn," she said. "Auburn really didn't come into play at all. They (the Muckleshoots) said, `You know, you are on our land.' We are a small business; we couldn't play in that sort of lawsuit. We had to do something to settle."

Tribal officials said they intend to force the mine to comply with their own land-use regulations, which they said are comparable to Auburn's.

State officials agree, saying tribal regulations often are more strict than those of the state or federal government, to protect fisheries.

The gravel mine's recent history has done little to reassure Auburn officials that the mine will be kept in check.

The permit application submitted to the city in October indicates that Miles has been mining beyond the scope of its earlier permit, and has been digging into the groundwater, said Steve Lancaster, Auburn planning director.

City officials had asked for a short-term permit - five years - on the site. Lancaster said they were hoping the firm would soon move elsewhere.

But with the land transfer, hopes of imminent closure of the mine has evaporated. The Muckleshoots have agreed to allow Miles to continue operating on its portion of the land for 25 years, with the option of renewing the lease for another 25 years.

"We in no way would have approved anything for 25 years," said Roegner. "The community has been subjected to this mining operation for years. There has to be a point where one says `enough.' "

The Muckleshoots say the lease was part of the deal they worked out with Miles to recover ancient lands lost through a misguided and disastrous act of Congress.

Nationwide, the 1887 Dawes Act, drafted and promoted by well-meaning church people and intellectuals, hit native land holdings like a bomb, said Ralph Johnson, University of Washington professor specializing in tribal law.

To make Native Americans into small landholders and farmers - in essence, to turn them into white settlers - the Dawes Act divided tribal lands into small parcels and allotted them to individual Indians, who after a period of years would acquire title to them.

The policy was an utter failure.

Penniless Native Americans who could barely speak English couldn't pay their new property taxes, and found their land shortly seized and sold. Others died before the end of the waiting period, and never got title. Still others sold their land for cash.

Before the catastrophic allotments were halted in 1934, 68 percent of native-held lands nationwide slipped out of Indian hands, Johnson said.

The Muckleshoots were hit particularly hard by the Dawes Act, which resulted in the allotment of thousands of acres by 1903, said Dan Stark, Muckleshoot tribal economic planner. By the late 1960s, less than an acre of the tribe's original 3,800 acres remained in Native American ownership.

Bit by bit, the Muckleshoots are trying to recover their lost lands.

In the past six years, Stark said, the tribe has purchased or acquired just over 500 acres of the original holdings, including the Miles pit.

Allotted to a Muckleshoot tribal member in 1914, the site of the Miles pit was quickly sold thereafter.

Last week's agreement with Miles returns it to tribal hands, as well as about 100 surrounding acres that never were part of the reservation. The 100 acres were given in part as compensation for the environmental damage at the site, Stark said.

"It's been very important to the tribe to obtain the title," Stark said. "Now it feels better protected."

The tribe will ask for the land to be converted into permanent trust held by the federal government. The process of converting land to trust, which is subject to approval by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, usually takes between two and four months, said Will Bowker, acting area director of the Portland, Ore. office of the BIA.

Stark said the tribe has not made specific decisions about what will be done with the land once the lease is up. He suggested several possibilities, including homes, business or open space.

Johnson, and Tom Laurie, intergovernmental liaison for the state Department of Ecology, predicted that if both sides continue to insist on their zoning authority over the land, the result could be a drawn-out lawsuit.