Tribal members should be paid for their big fire loss

I have waited approximately eight years for a determination on when we, Colville Tribal Members, were going to be compensated for the 2015 North Star fire. Since I haven’t heard of any compensation, I decided to file a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request with the BIA Regional office in Portland, Oregon. I filed this request on January 13, 2023, and I have received two answers as of this writing and will receive a final third response in the near future. I am going to share a portion of what I received because I believe it is in the best interest of all Tribal members.

During the time of this fire, the fire danger was at a level 3, and that means you could only be in the woods logging until 1 p.m., “Hoot Owl” hours. I have asked what was the total acres burnt from this man-caused fire, and I was told approximately 285,000 acres. I want to know who is going to be held responsible for destroying all these acres. The documents I received from the regional office in Portland, Oregon show who made the request to operate after the 1 p.m. deadline of the Hoot Owl hours, who was logging, and who approved the request. I believe the request was on behalf of Colville Tribal Federal Corporation’s CEO and the approval came from the Colville Indian Agency on behalf of the Northwest Regional Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Interior.

Just for the timber lost due to the fire I will make a very conservative estimate of the volume lost. Since the approximate acres burnt is at 285,000 and if there were 5,000 board feet per acre, the volume would be approximately 1,425,000,000 board feet! Someone would have to see what the going price of lumber was going at that time to get a value we lost. Let me give a rough example of what we the Tribal Membership may receive if the stumpage was $300 per thousand. So, to get an approximate value we should get, we would have to multiply 1,425,000,000 by $300 and that would give you $427,500,000,000. So, $427,500,000,000 divided by 1,000 [because the $300 is per thousand] would be $427,000,000. Then you would divide that $427 million by 9,500 Tribal members and you would get $45,000 that each Tribal member should receive. Mind you, that is just an estimate and that does not include all the future volume lost or the compensation for all our traditional values.From the documents I received, CTFC was fined a little less than $20,000! I asked what was the value of the wildlife habitat, water quality, medicinal roots and berries, and the spiritual “sense of place.” I have yet to get a response. I was just informed that the litigation is ongoing. Since this is where our only per capitas come from, I wanted to make sure we, the Tribal Members, receive what was lost.

I write this because there was a post that there will be a one-time payment of $500 this December. I responded that this was good but we were getting $200 per cap when the timber price was $50 per thousand, and the price has jumped 40 times that amount to $2,000 per thousand, so in theory we should have been getting $8,000 per cap.

John St. Pierre

Former forest tech, IRMP coordinator, Natural Resources director, BIA deputy superintendent, BIA superintendent, and fiduciary trust

officer in the

Bureau of

Trust Funds

Administration