Ute tribe expanding outlook, economic prospects

Ute tribe expanding outlook, economic prospects

April 19, 2001

YOP ADVISORS and students pose in the Ute tribe’s newly refurbished youth recreation center. Pictured from bottom left are: Dendell Whiteman, Gabriel Casey, Josephine Mills, Kernita Dutchie, Mark Marquez, Carol Williamson, Misty Plentyholes, Wifred Madrid, Tina Galyon, Flaydina Knight, Marshal Deer, Bill Williamson, and Curtis Hatch.

By Jim Mimiaga
Journal Staff Writer

Over the last 10 years the Ute Mountain Ute tribe has surged ahead, bringing new jobs, development and educational opportunities to its 2000 tribal members.

Assimilating into the fast-paced mainstream society while retaining their rich traditions, way of life and language has been a difficult process.

Such acute cultural contrasts have contributed to a sense of isolation on the reservation, causing unemployment, poverty and education numbers there to be worse than national averages. But lately, improvements on all of those fronts has been fast and furious:

The Ute Mountain Utes’ newly organized Youth Opportunity Program has hired a permanent director to head an education and career-development program targeting reservation kids.

Tina Galyon, a Ute education specialist, will direct the $2 million-a-year program, which is funded by a Department of Labor grant for the next five years.

"Our goal is to meet kids’ needs on a social, education and career level," Galyon said. "Our kids need to get to a place where they are self-sufficient, and that means getting them enrolled in schools, into training and career-development programs."

The YOP targets youths on the reservation between the ages of 14 and 21, using eight full-time advisors. So far, 175 kids have signed up, many that otherwise were making poor life decisions and moving in dangerous directions with little mentor guidance, Galyon said.

"Stopping that cycle on the reservation towards idleness or alcoholism is what we are working towards, and that means inspiring our young people to get busy so that they can one day run our many different enterprises here," she said. "We have seen some success stories over the years. This program will help us create even more."

Economic development has been a bull market, leading to a remarkable jump in employment and business opportunity in the last decade, said planning and development director Troy Ralstin.

Most recently the tribe opened a $3 million truck stop, a $9 million detention center, and a $1 million Head Start building. Currently, Mike Wash Road, the main access into Towaoc, is undergoing a $4 million renovation that will remove three miles of asphalt, widen shoulders and be repaved. Completion is expected by October.

Other plans under way involve building an 80-room hotel adjacent to the casino, and relocating Weminuche Construction to an industrial park south of Towaoc.

"The tribal council’s focus is retaining services and jobs here more, whereas the dynamics in the county cause a lot of commerce to leak into Cortez from smaller communities like us and Mancos and Dolores," Ralstin said. "It works for the benefit of the whole region when each community can offer something different and get that tourist to stay one more day, so that is what we are doing."

The dreams of Ute entrepreneurs depend heavily on economic development spurred by the tribe. Reservations are unique in that property under private homes and businesses must be leased from the tribe, which as a whole owns the land. Without outright ownership of property, it is very difficult for individuals to secure loans for upstart businesses.

"So to offer that opportunity, the tribe builds the facility, like the truck stop, and then rents out space to tribal members to run private businesses," Ralstin said.

Since 1990, the Utes have created some 500 new jobs ranging from positions at the Ute Mountain Casino to construction, agriculture and tourism. Unemployment has consequently declined from an estimated 54 percent in 1990 to 30 percent today.

The Utes are expanding into the medical field. They are negotiating to build a 6-12-bed surgery center and hospital in Blanding, Utah. The Utes would be 51 percent owners with the rest of the venture funded by private investors. Once built, the $12 million facility would give Utes living in White Mesa quicker access to care, and would be available to non-Indians as well throughout the region.

"It is not a go yet," said Art Cuthair, a member of the tribal council, "but we saw a need there and saw an investment opportunity."

• Now that the $279 million Animas-La Plata project may receive some initial funding, the Ute Mountain tribe hopes to nab the lead contracting job for its Weminuche Construc-tion firm, Cuthair said.

"Right now we see it as a job opportunity for our people," he said. "That’s seven years worth of work there that we can offer so we are pushing for that right now."

The off-stream,120,000-acre-foot reservoir will at last settle Ute claims to water on the Animas River under treaties dating back 100 years.

"All of these years the Ute water has been flowing downstream for use in Phoenix and Los Angeles so it is about time we can capture it for the benefit of our tribe’s future," Cuthair said. "For 12 years we have lobbied, lobbied and lobbied — now I think we are finally over that hump."

If A-LP survives inevitable court challenges by the environmental community, the Ute Mountain Utes would receive 16,500 acre-feet of water per year. The water would be pulled from the Animas River, pumped uphill and stored in Ridges Basin reservoir, south of Durango.

For now the tribe plans to just store its share of the water, Cuthair said. That’s because the Utes have no access to it, since Phase II of the project, which would have paid for delivery infrastructure, was dropped because of expense.

Initially A-LP costs approached $1 billion and included a larger reservoir and an elaborate system to pipe water from the Animas Valley into the La Plata river and then up onto the eastern portion of the Ute reservation via a series of canals, pumping stations and pipelines.

Recently the tribal newspaper, Weminuche Smoke Signals, began publishing every two weeks rather than once a month, said editor Norman Lopez. Additional reporters were brought on staff, new computers installed and improved layout procedures were enacted.

"We needed to get the information out to the community on a more timely basis so that they recognize and notice more what is happening with the tribal council," Lopez said.

2000 Census data show Towaoc at 1,450 residents, up from 700 in 1990. However, the 1990 figures grossly underestimated the population, officials said.