West River Eagle

Tribal land security through toll booths



EAGLE PHOTO BY ALAINA BEAUTIFUL BALD EAGLE
CRST Intergovernmental Affairs Coordinator Remi Bald Eagle assesses Highway 63 near the Cheyenne River. This access point onto the reservation is one location considered in the initial toll booth feasibility study.

On February 10, the office of Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier announced that the Tribe would initiate an internal feasibility study on the viability of placing toll booths on entry points to the reservation. The study is prompted by the poor state of roads on CRST, a situation which worsened with severe weather and extreme flooding in 2019.

In a press release Chairman Frazier stated, “We need to take such action because of federal neglect in the infrastructure projects they have initiated. I have been all over Indian country and realize that the federal government is not interested in helping anyone so we have to do it ourselves.”

The Chairman’s office estimates a budget of $120 million for transportation projects to rehabilitate and improve roads and highways on the reservation. The current federal budget for tribal transportation is $2.2 million per year. The roads impacted are maintained by a variety of entities; BIA, federal, state, county and the tribe. The proposed toll booths would be on state and federal highway access points and would charge a fee to enter the reservation only, not exit.

CRST Intergovernmental Affairs Coordinator Remi Bald Eagle is assisting with the internal feasibility study, which is led by Chairman Frazier. When the study is complete, the recommendations will be shared with tribal council. At that point tribal council may decide to call for a more in-depth professional study, approve a plan to move forward, or may decide to take no action.

The study takes into consideration issues of human and drug trafficking which take place on, or pass through the reservation.

“This is an active response by the tribe to curtail some of the things we are passively doing now, like interdicting drugs and missing persons. So it’s not just revenue that we’re looking at. These facilities also look to secure our borders,” said Bald Eagle.

He went on to say, “There are multiple entry points to the reservation and obviously not every single unimproved road or trail will be covered by tolls. But one of the advantages that we have here on Cheyenne River is that two of our borders are riparian. They’re water, they’re rivers, and those two borders have easily controlled access. So that’s one of the main points to consider. If you look at the access from here to the border with North Dakota, there’s only two bridges.”

The two bridges are located in Mobridge and east of LaPlant.

“Then you look at the confluence of the Cheyenne River and the Missouri river. How many bridges cross these waterways to gain access to Highway 212? There are two on Cheyenne River. And I think there’s only one or two others between here and the Black Hills. So anytime somebody wants to travel to northwestern South Dakota, they’re going to have to come through these routes. In a lot of cases, traffic that’s trying to avoid I-90 or more heavily policed routes, come down over Cheyenne River. It’s a way for us to control that, too,” Bald Eagle said.

There are eight entry points on routes into CRST under initial consideration. The main highways onto CRST are Highway 212 and Highway 20 that run east and west, and Highway 34/73, Highway 63 and Highway 65 that run north and south.

According to Bald Eagle, the current study considers traffic flow on the major avenues of approach, formulas for how different conditions would affect those traffic flows, different variables such as how tolls might be charged based on type of vehicle, number of wheels or number of occupants.

Residents of Dewey or Ziebach County and tribal members would not have to pay any kind of toll or fee, said Bald Eagle.

The study also considers construction, weather and staffing. New buildings would need to be serviceable in all kinds of extreme weather.

“We have to consider things like existing infrastructure for water and electricity and communications. All of those things come into play,” he said.

Staffing throughout the year is another consideration. Staffing and housing needs differ widely throughout the seasons.

“Obviously, manning those checkpoints during the month of September is a totally different concept than managing that same facility in say, January or February. What capabilities do these facilities need to have by way of emergency preparedness for things like blizzards, heavy rains, tornadoes?” said Bald Eagle.

The initial concept predicts the creation of approximately 50 permanent, full-time jobs at the community level, not centralized in Eagle Butte.

An open question remains as to who would own the toll booth entity. Would it be a commercial entity on its own? Run by the Tribe? Part of an existing tribal department such as Transportation or Law Enforcement? Would a new department need to be created? The decision will be driven by short- and long-term goals.

Long-term goals include increasing the capabilities of the toll booths to inspect livestock branding, weigh trucks, record vehicles that pass through the points, integrate with Amber Alerts, more effectively monitor commercial traffic, and the potential for the creation of a tribal Motor Carrier division. Ideally, the program would allow CRST to strengthen its Indian Highway Safety Program since South Dakota Highway Patrol is not allowed within the borders of the reservation.

Due to the potential for increased revenue and employment, feedback from tribal members has been mostly positive.

Initially the staffing demands are going to be very heavy, which is on purpose.

“One of its purposes is employment. We want to make it easy for the operators at tollbooth to do their job. But we also want to make sure that we don’t eliminate the need for tribal members to be out there,” said Bald Eagle.

Revenue projections are extremely conservative. The study takes traffic numbers provided by the South Dakota Department of Transportation and cuts them in half. Tribal and resident traffic is not included in the projections.  Varying formulas estimate revenue in the millions of dollars.

According to Bald Eagle, “We’re expecting that any revenue coming out of this should exceed our feasibility expectations.”

Even with the all positives, there have been some concerns.

“We’ve had some really good questions from tribal members. Some ask what the cons are, things like having to wait in line to come back onto the reservation. Initially there’s not going to be a lot of lanes, but once they’re established we could always increase lanes, maybe allow another line for tribal member and resident traffic,” he said.

Other concerns among tribal members are adding the cost of transportation onto the products which vendors bring onto the reservation, or non-member relatives or non-resident relatives coming to visit on the reservation.

“There’s also the issue of people who live off the reservation but work on the reservation driving to work every day and having to pay a toll,” said Bald Eagle and explained that all of these will be addressed in the study.

A venture like this is unprecedented in the region so traffic and revenue estimates are hard to come by. The study has investigated other places with toll infrastructure, both with high population density such as Chicago and New York, and lower population density like Oklahoma and Nebraska.

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