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- By Elyse Wild
Citizens of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes are protesting a bill that will result in the loss of tribal treaty lands within the Wind River Reservation that the tribes have been attempting to repatriate for more than 80 years.
The Pilot Butte Power Plant Conveyance Act introduced last year as co-current bills by Wyoming Senators John Barrasso, Senator Cynthia Lummis, and Representative Harriet Hageman would require the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to transfer ownership of a rundown hydroelectric power plant located within the borders of the reservation to the Midvale Irrigation District. The transfer includes a penstock that diverts water from the Wind River Basin through the Wyoming Canal to the Pilot Butte Reservoir. The land was part of 1.5 million acres ceded by the tribes in 1905, and on 111,000-acre the tribes have been attempting to repatriate since 1939.
The legislation was written and advanced without tribal consultation. It passed the House this February. In a news release, Hageman hailed the bill as a victory for taxpayers; but tribal citizens and advocates call the bill the latest in a long history of broken treaty agreements and land grabs. The reservation was originally 44 million acres per the 1863 Fort Bridger Treaty. Five years later, the government reduced the land to less than 3 million acres.
“It’s been more than 100 years. The second they abandoned that power plant, it should have been returned back to the tribes,” Jessica Zina (Eastern Shoshone) told Native News Online. “By not returning this land back to us it's threatening to harm our tribal sovereignty.”
Zina, her fellow Eastern Shoshone citizen Shay Jimerson and Northern Arapaho citizen Nicole Wagon have organized a peaceful protest outside of Barrasso's office in Riverton, Wyoming, from 10 am-2 pm on Thursday, December 5.
Wagon said the Pilot Butte Power Plant Conveyance Act is a disturbing wake-up call, noting that there is no mention in the bill that the land in question is on the Wind River Reservation.
“I don’t think people know how serious this is,” Wagon told Native News Online. “The word ‘Native’ is nowhere in the bill.”
In response to Native News Online’s request for comment, Barrasso’s office emailed a YouTube video of an October 17, 2024 debate during which the senator is asked by Chris Clements from Wyoming Public Meidia if he considers the situation a “win-win,” given the tribal opposition.
Barrasso replied:
“I think it is a win-win for the people. It's here in Fremont County. It's a hydropower plant. It's about the size of a one-and-a-half football field. I know some people call it a land grab. It's a fairly small piece of land. There's a federal building on their power plant that's ready to be destroyed, paid for by the government, because it's been basically not in use for the last 15 years, and the people who live right there said, we'll be happy to put the money in, get it back into use and make sure that the power from there can be used locally.
Now we understood that the Bureau of Reclamation was going to talk to the local community, Eastern Shoshone, and I understand that they didn't get talked to. I think that was a mistake. I think they should have been informed earlier on. But no, I do believe it's a win-win to use the energy to not have the government have to pay the money to destroy this right now. It's taxpayer money. It's going to be used that way. This is actually making something that has not been in use for 15 years, put it back to functional use for the benefit of the people right here in Fremont County.
Pretty much anything that you do. There's somebody that supports, somebody that imposes and based on the size, the location and the use, I think it is appropriate, and I continue to support it.”
Native News Online reached out to Hagemen's office for comment and did not receive a reply by press time.
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