Despite Disconnect by officials and media... Huge Issues and Scary Impacts Come with Mille Lacs and other Treaty Cases

by Joe Fellegy

A March 18, 1996, press release from the Wisconsin DNR more than hints at what "treaty rights" could mean for Minnesotans - dramatic changes for sport fishermen and hunters, major impacts on tourism and local economies, a forced surrender of the state's role as sole manager of state resources, on-going hassles over harvest goals and quotas, costly legal battles, and a never-ending emphasis on "differences" and unequal rights with inevitable tears in the social fabric.

Meanwhile, despite this serious situation, Minnesota's appointed and elected officials, as well as media stalwarts - the "leadership" class - have largely disconnected from their constituents and say little while a powerful anti-Minnesota agenda marches on.

Excerpts from that Wisconsin release:

"The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has received 1996 walleye and muskie harvest goals from the state's six Chippewa Indian bands. Harvest declarations for certain northern lakes are sharply higher than in previous years and may result in a hook-and-line daily bag limit of zero or two walleye on a number of northern lakes this year.

This year, for the first time, the Chippewa Bands indicated their intent to take 100 percent of the safe harvest for walleye on a number of lakes in Vilas, Oneida, Florence, Chippewa, Iron, Price, Rusk and Eau Claire counties. Chippewa declarations of 100 percent would result in zero bag limits for sport anglers in those waters."

"This is absolutely unacceptable. It could severely hurt tourism and decimate local business," said DNR Secretary George Meyer. "If the bands do not adopt more reasonable harvest numbers, we will seek legal action," Meyer said. "Under both the spirit and the letter of the federal court decision, the resource was to be shared between Indian and non-Indian fishers," he said.

"On March 15th the six Chippewa bands - through the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) and the Voigt Inter-Tribal Task Force - notify the DNR of the number of walleye and muskie they intend to harvest from safe harvest quotas. The DNR then adjusts sport angler bag limits on each lake so that the combined Chippewa and sport hook-and-line harvest do not exceed safe harvest levels and endanger the lake's walleye and muskie populations."

The number of Wisconsin lakes where the proposed Chippewa harvests would drive the sport harvest to zero is nearly 80.

Comments and thoughts:

· Nets and "commercial."

While gill net fishing and commercial fisheries for game fish are at total odds with the core values of Minnesotans - invoking tremendous fear, worry, uncertainty, and outrage in thousands of people - a large gill net fishery and commercial fishing are the major push as Minnesota resources are "allocated" at conference tables, and in depositions of expert witnesses as Phase II of the 1837 Mille Lacs treaty case heads for trial in fall, 1996.

There is only one commercial fishery for walleyes in the United States. That is at Red Lake, Minn., a closed reservation with full tribal management of an Indian fishing cooperative. No sport fishing or resort industry exists there, where tribal elders now warn of "collapse" due to overfishing. Imagine nets and commercial fishing at Mille Lacs, Minnesota's largest sport fishery!

In pre-trial depositions and Phase I trial testimony in 1994, even Mille Lacs Band members refused to embrace commercial fishing. Herman Kegg, for example, insisted that commercial fishing would be contrary to "the Indian way." Similarly, Lawrence Bedeau, a Red Lake tribal council member, recently warned on KTCA's Minnesota Newsnight that intense harvests, with "people making a living at it," was "not the intent of the old chiefs." Yet, in the Mille Lacs case, commercial fishing is a central feature. Who's pushing it? Will Minnesota do all in its power to stop it?

· Who manages what as the state surrenders its sole jurisdiction?

A failure of the state to prevail in treaty cases would likely mean that Minnesota dramatically gives up its role as sole manager of Minnesota resources. It's true that at several DNR Treaty Consultation Forums, briefings held in 1996 with a select group, state officials claimed Minnesota is fighting to retain its role as "ultimate manager." But state citizens are kept in the dark about how treaty fishing and hunting really work - with a forced "cooperative" management system where tribal management has a major influence, with the state having to "adjust."

The specifics of co-op management and what tribal management fully means have not been explained. What is the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC)? By whose authority does it operate? Who funds it? What is its present scope in Minnesota? What would its activities be if treaty fishing and hunting proceed? How would Minnesota's DNR management be affected? What about enforcement? (You can imagine the shock experienced by Mille Lacs Lake residents last fall when, in the dark of night, a lit-up GLIFWC "assessment" boat with electro-fishing gear made its way along the shore, with non-state personnel handling fish and conducting studies. . .)

· Forced "adjustments" in the sport fishery.

Treaty fishing and hunting involves a court-directed "allocation" of resources. "Safe harvest levels" or "harvestable surplus" - the estimated amount of fish or game that can be harvested by all parties without damaging the resource. With Mille Lacs walleyes, the safe harvest level might be 500,000 pounds per year. Until now, sport fishermen did all the harvesting - up to a million pounds in 1992, and much skimpier figures in "poor" years like 1985. Enter Band treaty fishing, and the harvestable surplus or "safe harvest figure" would be strictly imposed.

If the Mille Lacs Band and the six Wisconsin intervenor bands are allocated 50 percent of the harvestable surplus and use it, then Mille Lacs sport anglers would be restricted to an annual harvest of 250,000 pounds of walleye . The state and its sport anglers would have to decide how to "adjust" their harvest - by closed seasons, limited entry via special permit, reduced limits, or slot limits. By reducing the walleye limit to 1, the estimated reduction would be only 17 percent, bringing the state's share of the average annual harvest down to 370,000 pounds - still far above 250,000 pounds. A slot limit where anglers must release all walleyes between 16 and 22 inches would make the required reduction but would severely impact the local economy. With no change in regulations, and with the state's allocation at 250,000 pounds, the Mille Lacs sport fishery would be closed down by June 2 in a normal year.) Similar "adjustments" could face Minnesota hunters in much of eastern and northern Minnesota.

· What philosophy drives the treaty agenda?

The Wisconsin bands and GLIFWC, with 1996 fishing agendas that could result in zero harvest by sportsmen on scores of lakes in the Badger state, have Wisconsin state officials concerned about how tourism could be "severely hurt" and businesses "decimated." Is that the intent of tribal fishing? A stick-it-in-their-faces attitude? To describe historic Indian-U. S. relations, Don Wedll, the Mille Lacs Band's most visible spokesman, uses the analogy of the stolen car "with no payments made" - as though the 1988 Indian Gaming Act, Minnesota's generosity in signing two lucrative compacts with the Mille Lacs Band, and their economy's resulting huge forward leap from two casinos, means nothing.

No payments made? Let Band members and non-Band taxpayers see the figures. What federal and state dollars visit the tribal government? What does corporate and individual giving amount to? How generous or ungenerous have Minnesota citizens been to the Mille Lacs, from the recently completed multi-million dollar history complex across the highway from Grand Casino Mille Lacs to patronizing the Band's casinos, from Band building projects to social programs? So far there's been no accountability, and there's been some worry that Minnesota's DNR has at times indicated a willingness to compromise on harvest matters in exchange for scrapping the moderate standard of living defense.

In an October, 1995, interview with Dennis Anderson entitled "DNR, Indians searching for the common ground," Wedll asserted that resorts and anglers are taking fish that they have no right to, fish that don't belong to them. Is this the driving philosophy behind the treaty lawsuits against Minnesota? Will there be a constant effort to "punish" the wider society for historic sins, as though payments, benefits, and good will have never existed? Will there be a constant sadistic jerking of the public psyche? Should a tribal government be allowed to commit millions of Band and taxpayer funds - with all the costs and conse-quences, threatening Minnesota's sovereignty, economic well-being, and public peace - over purely political fish?

· History and culture.

While spin doctors have wrapped the Mille Lacs treaty lawsuit in "history," "culture," and 'tradition," using terms like "sacred" and "rights struggle," all evidence indicates that suing Minnesota over 1837 treaty rights was not a priority in the Band in 1990. In fact, there's no history of the Mille Lacs Band seriously questioning state management authority in the 12-county ceded territory. No evidence was presented at trial to indicate the Mille Lacs Band ever understood it retained fishing, hunting, and gathering rights in the off-reservation ceded territory independent of state control.

No Mille Lacs chief or post-1934 corporate tribal government ever made it a cause or concern. As late as the early 1990s, Band members frequently stated that "nobody cares about fishing." And Don Wedll, Mille Lacs Band DNR commissioner and chief spokesperson, told the Minnesota Sportfishing Congress and others that the Band's only interest was in a few dozen fish a year for ceremonial purposes. Now we're up to tons of purely political fish with serious consequences for Minnesotans! The Mille Lacs treaty lawsuit does not flow from dictates of old "Ojibwe culture," which is often brazenly used to further 1990s political agendas. The six intervening Wisconsin Bands, who would fish and hunt in the Minnesota ceded territory, have no historic or cultural ties to Mille Lacs.

· Preparing the "public response."

State officials are now considering how to prepare Minnesotans for Band exercise of treaty rights. That may be a formidable challenge. How does one prepare a sportfishing community for gill nets and commercial fishing for walleyes and muskies? One would never think of setting up a P.A. system on Hennepin Avenue and shouting "nigger." Yet it is as culturally insensitive to wave "gill nets" and "commercial fishing" at hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans conditioned to view them as powerful devil terms. Some Minnesota core values would be stomped on.

How does one prepare people steeped in concepts of "equal rights" and "equal opportunity," not to mention Dr. King's "color-blind society" dream, for unequal rights, different sets of rules, and celebrations of "differences"? Three-month deer seasons versus two weeks? And how does one prepare the Midwest's largest sport fishing community for the monumental "adjustments" required if treaty fishing goes as planned? Similarly, how could one have really prepared people for the failed out-of-court, secretly-negotiated 1993 settlement efforts in the Legislature - with a race-based "exclusive zone" and gill nets in Mille Lacs, plus a major expenditure of THEIR money and THEIR land (largely unspecified), plus plenty of jurisdictional and legal issues?

"Preparing the public" will be especially difficult since the Minnesota Congressmen, the Governor, legislative leaders, the Attorney General's office, DNR operatives, other officials, and the media, have failed to genuinely identify with their own citizen-defendants. Another serious problem is that dating back to the early efforts at settlement of the Mille Lacs case in the legislature, state citizens have been largely uninformed about treaty issues and their potential and real impacts on the state. "Ceded territory" involves many counties, hundreds of lakes, miles of stream, and big questions about jurisdiction in much of eastern and northern Minnesota!

· Leadership gap and news blackout.

Imagine the political activity and frenzied press coverage if a local government cooperated with corporate interests in pushing gillnetting and commercial fishing for game fish at Lake Minnetonka, or Gull Lake - or Mille Lacs, Minnesota's most popular sport fishery! Suppose they had jurisdictional designs on dozens of state counties, asking the state to give up its role as sole resource manager? What if a foreign country were involved? And what if a court backed them up?

No matter. You'd hear an unrelenting loud chorus in perfect harmony. Our U. S. Senators, the Governor, legislative leaders, the DNR Commissioner, tourism spokespersons, fishing and hunting clubs, environmentalists, animal rights groups, and civic leaders would connect with the interests of Minnesotans and oppose it all. They'd elbow each other in a rush to the TV cameras to denounce an "outrageous" and unworkable plan that would challenge state sovereignty over its own resources, threaten economies, shrink property values, and endanger fish, game and public safety. They'd warn of boats crashing into net buoys. Animal rights interests would wave photos of dead loons and ducks entangled in gill nets.

Newspaper editors would challenge every sentence of those leading the netting and commercial fishing agenda. Goals, motives, and impacts would be thoroughly explored. They'd prominently feature the arguments against it all. Minnesota leaders would posture to save Minnesota. Where are all these people now? Can they honorably sit back, claiming to fear simple-minded politically correct dogma - like "if you're for Indians you must support the treaty rights agenda; and if you question things you're "against the Indians" and risk charges of "racism"? Should such idiocy govern a state's response - or lack of one - to something this big?