Two US Tribes Differ On Approach To Energy Riches

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original-reuters

Two US Tribes Differ On Approach To Energy Riches

Story by Adam Tanner

CROW AGENCY, Montana - For many decades the rival neighbouring American Indian Crow and Northern Cheyenne tribes have suffered high unemployment and poverty in a remote area of one of the most remote US states.

Now the Crow are starting to develop the energy riches on their reservation -- including billions of dollars worth of coal, oil and gas -- in an effort to end poverty, while the Northern Cheyenne say widespread extraction of coal or other natural resources could threaten their reservation.

"We don't agree with the Northern Cheyenne," said Carl Venne, chairman of the Crow Nation, in an interview. "If they want to stay the same, they can stay the same. I'm taking my tribe in a new direction."

"They have a lot of resources and they choose not to use it. I can't go back to the tepee and to the loin cloth."

Located in south-eastern Montana on the Wyoming border, the Crow estimate their coal reserves at 15 to 19 billion tons, and say beneath their 2.2 million-acre reservation lies a lot of oil, gas and other natural resources that should be mined.

Directly to the east in Montana, the state with the nation's largest coal reserves, the Northern Cheyenne Nation share the rich geology whose value has steadily increased as energy prices have soared.

Yet the tribe of 4,135 residents on the 444,000-acre reservation has shunned energy development to overcome poverty that includes battered wooden outhouses for some families and a 70 percent unemployment rate.

"My concerns are about water," said Northern Cheyenne President Geri Small, saying she fears energy exploration would impact the arid region's ground supplies. "For the Northern Cheyenne water is life -- without water we cannot survive."

Her sister, Gail Small, director of Native Action, an environmental group based in the reservation's main town of Lame Deer, Montana, takes pride in the tribe's focus on tradition and environment over money.

"Our tribe and the Crow are very different," she said.

"There is nowhere else where you can find people sitting on all this wealth and just saying 'no' when we could be millionaires," she added proudly.

Despite common economic hardships and opportunities, the two tribes have a long history of animosity.

Northern Cheyenne elders often recount the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, when Cheyenne Indians helped defeat the US Cavalry led by George Custer. In that battle, Crow fought on the losing side with the US Cavalry.

Politics still divide the leadership of the two tribes.

The Crow adopted Sen. Barack Obama into their tribe in a recent ceremony. The leader of the Northern Cheyenne endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton and some members scoff at the thought of the Crows adopting an outsider so readily for political gain.

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