Reagan Signs Bill Splitting Hoopa Reservation

President Reagan has signed a bill to split the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in Northern California between the Hoopa and Yurok tribes, despite a threat of a new round of legal wrangling over the reservation’s timber resources, it was announced Tuesday.

The measure would divide the 94,000-acre reservation, established in 1864, giving the Hoopa Indians 90,000 acres in a timber-rich area known as “The Square.” The other 4,000 acres, running for 40 miles along the Trinity and Klamath rivers, would go to the Yuroks.

There are about 5,700 Indians on the combined reservation, with members of the Hoopa tribe accounting for about 30%.

The bill would also apportion to Indian plaintiffs in a 25-year-old lawsuit $65 million in timber revenues that have been tied up in an escrow account. Because of the snarl of lawsuits over the last two decades and the squabbling between the two groups, the Bureau of Indian Affairs took over operation of the reservation last April.

Opponents of the bill by Rep. Douglas H. Bosco, (D-Occidental), sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Alan Cranston, (D-Calif.), staged an unsuccessful last-minute lobbying effort. Opponents included the 1963 lawsuit plaintiffs, some Hoopas and many Yuroks who argued that the Hoopas get most of the benefits of the bill and that the Yuroks are being shortchanged.

The Department of the Interior and the White House Office of Management and Budget both opposed the measure because it contains $15 million for land acquisition and settlement money for the Yuroks. Bosco said the Department of Justice had supported the bill.

Michael Greenberg, a San Francisco attorney representing the Yuroks, said he will file a new suit challenging the constitutionality of the Bosco bill.

Greenberg said the bill represents an unconstitutional taking of the land by the Hoopas and does not adequately compensate the Yuroks.