In Wyoming, tribal protests prevent land transfer — for now

A tiny scrap of land within the bounds of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming has become the center of a heated debate. The roughly two-acre site is home to the Pilot Butte Power Plant, a defunct hydroelectric station that a local irrigation district is interested in taking over and rehabilitating. 

The Midvale Irrigation District approached the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal entity that controls dams and other irrigation infrastructure, with the proposal in 2022. The situation to Steve Lynn, the manager of the irrigation district, seemed to work for just about everyone. The plant could be utilized to produce hydroelectric power for the community. There are very few clean energy projects in Wyoming, and this one at maximum capacity could power about 50 households on average per day, a substantial amount for a sparsely populated region.

But the project has run up against opposition from the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho, the Indigenous tribes that share the Wind River Reservation. The tribes oppose the transfer because the land in question was ceded to the federal government under duress. Even if the irrigation district takes over the plant, it would be of little benefit to the tribal members of Wind River. The district does not serve the reservation. 

Last year, United States Senator John Barrasso and Wyoming’s lone House Representative Harriet Hageman introduced the Pilot Butte Conveyance Act to transfer ownership of the land to the Midvale Irrigation District, bypassing tribal approval. The move has led to multiple protests by tribal members. Last week, around 20 tribal members gathered in the cold, held signs that read “Respect Indigenous Sovereignty,” waved tribal flags, and chanted in downtown Lander, Wyoming. The Wind River Inter-Tribal Council, the governmental unit that represents the Northern Arapaho and the Eastern Shoshone, also passed a resolution in December opposing the Act, stating that they were not “consulted, engaged, or notified of the legislation.”

“This is an erosion of tribal sovereignty,” Eastern Shoshone tribal member Sharolyn Jimmerson told Grist. “They wanted to pass this through without anybody noticing.” The issue is bigger than just the two acres, she said, and touches on old tensions between tribes and non-Natives.

The fight over this small dormant plant highlights the history of federal and private entities taking control of tribal land. Millions of acres of reservation land have been taken from hundreds of Indigenous nations over the years. As the population of non-Native people grew over the centuries, the United States government took land for universities, schools, fossil fuel exploration, and agriculture from tribes. The Eastern Shoshone, for instance, were originally promised 44 million acres of land by the United States government in 1863 but ultimately only received around 2.2 million acres. The federal government also said it would designate a reservation in Colorado for the Northern Arapaho, but the tribe was eventually placed on the Wind River Reservation.  

While the United States took large swaths of land to bolster agricultural projects in central Wyoming, some unused land acquired this way — deemed “excess lands” — was supposed to go back to the tribes. Since 1939, the tribes have been working to get land back through a series of consultations with the Bureau of Land Management and by advocating for legislative changes.  

Whether the federal government has the right to transfer ownership of the Pilot Butte Power Plant comes down to treaties signed more than 150 years ago and an agreement ratified by Congress in 1905. The Fort Bridger Treaty of 1863 designated the original 44 million acres to the Eastern Shoshone, and in 1905 Congress passed an act allowing for white settlement within the reservation. Three decades later, Congress reversed course requiring that “undisturbed” land be returned to tribes. The Bureau of Land Management has estimated that roughly 57,000 of the 104,000 acres of so-called excess land should be returned to the tribes of the Wind River. (The tribes are requesting that the entire 104,000 acres be returned.)

As a result, federal representatives like Barrasso and Hageman as well as the local irrigation district point to the land as firmly within the control of the federal government. But tribal leaders say that since the power plant is in the middle of the reservation, they should be consulted with its fate, and it should ultimately be returned to the tribe. 

Former Eastern Shoshone tribal council member Wes Martel said this land is protected under the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1863. “That’s always been the position of the tribes,” said Martel, who now works for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a conservation group based in Montana. 

“Everything north of the Big Wind [River] was reservation land.” Martel said that the tribes are disregarded by the federal government because land not deemed on the reservation is treated like it’s completely separate from the surrounding land on the Wind River Reservation. 

For Lynn, the irrigation district manager, and others in favor of the land transfer, the land was already ceded, and the tribes have no right to it. 

“The land was given by treaty to the federal government,” Lynn said. “The Pilot Butte Power Plant has nothing to do with the revocation back to the tribes.” A spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation told Grist that the agency sent the tribes an outreach letter about the transfer of the power plant, but did not follow up when they didn’t receive a response. The Biden administration’s guidelines for tribal consultation state that federal agencies should address issues of lack of adequate consultation by creating multiple contacts between the United States and the tribes. 

The future of the Pilot Butte plant is uncertain. Last month, Minnesota Senator Tina Smith and New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich opposed  Senator Barasso’s motion on the Senate floor to pass the bill citing the ongoing tribal protests in Wyoming. In response, Barasso promised to retaliate, noting that he will be “vigilant and watching out for bills that impact at least two and a half acres in their home state.” 

Steve Lynn with the Midvale Irrigation District expects more support for the Pilot Butte Conveyance Act now that a new GOP-led Congress has taken office and said it would eventually pass. Lynn maintains that Pilot Butte was never explicitly included in plans to transfer land back to tribes and that they have no case. 

But Jimmerson, who is part of the group Stop the Pilot Butte Conveyance Act, said she will be at the state’s capital on President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration day to continue protesting the bill. She said that the legislation is another example of tribal interests being disregarded in favor of irrigation for mostly white families in central Wyoming. 

“I don’t see how they could not think we were stakeholders in this land,” she said. “It’s heart-wrenching. We stewarded these lands for generations.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In Wyoming, tribal protests prevent land transfer — for now on Jan 15, 2025.