Congress May Delay Payment to Indians

BOSTON--The Reagan administration has asked Congress to delay paying the federal share of a $4.5 million settlement that would end a century-old land dispute with Wampanoag Indians living on the Massachusetts resort island of Martha's Vineyard.

The administration, through the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, has asked a House subcommittee not to include the $2.25 million federal portion of the settlement in the department's budget for the current fiscal year.

Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Ma.), who wrote the settlement legislation, has urged the subcommittee to reject the request, contending it would jeopardize the agreement scheduled to take effect Feb. 1, 1988.

In a letter to Rep. Sidney Yates, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Studds warned that landowners required to surrender land to the tribe as part of the settlement would not be bound by the agreement if it is not completed by Feb. 1.

"After that date, the owners are free to demand a higher price," Studds said. "With land values on Martha's Vineyard escalating rapidly, it is likely that the purchase price for the settlement lands could be significantly higher."

A Yates aide who would not allow himself to be identified said yesterday that the chairman had not taken a position on the issue as yet. It likely will come up in a meeting of House and Senate conferees that should be scheduled in the next few weeks, the aide said.

The settlement, signed by Reagan in August, gives the Wampanoags more than 400 acres of undeveloped island land. The state and federal governments are to pay $2.25 million each to buy 180 acres from private landowners in the island town of Gay Head, and the town is to contribute 238 acres of publicly owned land.

Will Waive Land Claims

In return, the Wampanoags will waive their right to future land claims in the 3,400-acre community. Tribal leaders have said part of the land obtained in the settlement would be used for low-income housing; the rest would be left undeveloped.

The federal appropriation is included in Senate-passed legislation but is not in a House appropriations bill. In asking the Yates committee to delay the funding, the Reagan administration said the state of Massachusetts had not allocated its share, that the town of Gay Head had not transferred the public land and that the Wampanoags should first be required to sign a waiver to future land claims.

But Studds said the state already had allocated $1.5 million of its share and would include the remaining $775,000 in a supplemental budget that Gov. Michael S. Dukakis had promised would be approved before the end of the calendar year.

The congressman also said in the letter that Gay Head officials assured him the land transfer would be complete by Feb.1 and that the settlement legislation called for the Wampanoags to execute the waiver at the time of the land transfer.

"I also want to emphasize that this settlement--laboriously negotiated over 13 years--would be seriously jeopardized if funds are not appropriated at this time," Studds said in the Nov. 19 letter to Yates.

Tribal leaders did not return telephone calls yesterday.