State tribes plan civil rights march 2 bands to turn over documents

To draw attention to what they believe is unjust treatment at the hands of the state, the legal system, and several paper companies, members of Maine Indian tribes are planning a march on Augusta later this week.

Marchers, predicted to number up to 500, will walk from the site of an 18th century Indian massacre in Norridgewock to the Capitol, where they will turn over documents requested by several paper companies, said Barry Dana, governor of the Penobscot Nation.

Members of tribes from other states and the president of the United Southern and Eastern Tribes, along with members of the consumer action group Maine People’s Alliance, are expected to join what is billed as a civil rights march for tribal sovereignty and water protection.

While the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes are intent on complying with a court order requiring them to produce the documents on Friday, they wanted to do so in a way that would also call attention to their plight, Dana said.

“We like to do things in a way that makes it really count,” Dana said of the daylong trek that will begin at sunrise Thursday along the Kennebec River at the site where more than 80 Indians and the Jesuit priest who had ministered to them were killed in 1724.

The tribes chose to begin their walk at this location, Dana said, because their rights are once again under attack.

That’s because they are being forced to turn over tribal documents despite the sovereign status they believe they were accorded under the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act in 1980, the tribes have asserted.

As part of the state’s efforts to obtain the authority to issue wastewater discharge permits under the federal Clean Water Act, a coalition of paper companies requested tribal documents about water quality under the state’s freedom of access law. The tribes objected to the state’s application for permitting authority, saying state officials have been too lenient with paper companies. Instead, they wanted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to continue to issue the permits.

When tribal officials refused to turn over the documents two years ago, a Superior Court judge sentenced them to jail and a fine of $1,000 for every day that the papers were withheld. The tribes then appealed the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear it. Every court along the way ruled against them.

In February, Gov. Angus King entered the fray and asked the tribes and state officials to settle the matter through negotiations. Although the paper companies were not part of the negotiations, their attorney said they supported the process and would drop their case once an agreement between all the parties, including the EPA, was reached.

In April, state and tribal officials said they had reached an agreement that would allow the state to gain permitting authority while the tribes would participate in reviews of permit applications.

The tribes then set about reaching a similar agreement with the EPA. On the day that agreement was to be reached, the tribes said they could no longer sign on to the deal with the state because the attorney for the paper companies had had too much involvement in its writing. Such allegations were strongly denied by the attorney and state officials.

Instead, tribal officials said they would make the requested documents available at the offices of the Natural Resources Council of Maine by Friday, thereby complying with the court’s deadline.

Paper company attorney Matt Manahan said he expects the requested documents to be ready and available at that time.

Before turning over the documents, however, the tribes want to call attention to the “injustice of the fines and jail time,” Dana said.

He said it is not right that the tribes are being forced to hand over their internal documents. Instead, he said the settlement act should be changed to exempt the tribes from the requirement of the freedom of access law. In addition, the legal status of the tribes should be changed so they will not be treated as municipalities, as the courts have ruled is proper under the terms of the act.

“We need to see what is not right and fix it,” Dana said. “We don’t want to put the whole settlement act on the table.”