SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) – The Onondaga Indian Nation filed a lawsuit Friday laying claim to 4,000 square miles in upstate New York stretching from Pennsylvania to Canada and including Syracuse and other cities.

The Onondagas are the last tribe of the original Iroquois Confederacy to file a land claim alleging that New York state illegally took possession of its lands beginning more than two centuries ago.

The Onondagas’ lawsuit does not seek monetary damages, eviction of residents or rental payments. The tribe wants a court judgment that New York violated federal law in acquiring the land and that the region continues to belong to the Onondaga Nation.

While other tribal land claims are being used as bargaining chips in casino negotiations, Onondaga leaders said they would use their land claim to compel the state to undertake environmental cleanup of hazardous sites in the land claim area – specifically Onondaga Lake.

“Our concern is for the water, the land, the air. They are not well,” said Sid Hill, the tribe’s spiritual leader. “It is the duty of the nation’s leaders to work for a healing of this land, to protect it, and to pass it on to future generations.”

The Syracuse lake – a sacred location regarded as the birthplace of the Iroquois Confederacy – is a federal Superfund site and one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world.

To that end, along with naming the state, county and city as defendants, the lawsuit also named five corporations, including Honeywell International. In 1999, Honeywell merged with Allied Signal Corp., the company blamed for dumping 165,000 pounds of mercury into the lake over a quarter century.

Honeywell has proposed a $237 million cleanup of the lake. The Onondagas say the plan is inadequate.

The Onondagas identified at least 91 other Superfund sites in 40 communities in the land claim area, with more than half of them in the Syracuse area.

A spokesman for Gov. George Pataki said state attorneys would review the lawsuit and do whatever was necessary to protect property owners and taxpayers. Spokesman Todd Alhart also defended Pataki’s environmental record.

“The cleanup and revitalization of Onondaga Lake continues to be one of the state’s highest priorities,” Alhart said.

The land claim area has no precise boundaries but includes parts of 11 upstate counties: Broome, Cortland, Cayuga, Chenango, Jefferson, Lewis, Madison, Onondaga, Oswego, Tioga and Tompkins. The swath of land varies in width from 10 miles to 40 miles and includes the cities of Syracuse, Binghamton, Watertown, Cortland, Fulton, and Oswego. About 875,000 people live in the claim area.

The Onondaga claim New York illegally acquired 95 percent of its tribal lands in five treaties between 1788 and 1822.

Today, the Onondagas live on an 11-square-mile reservation just south of Syracuse. The Onondagas have about 1,500 members.

While the lawsuit itself does not seek any money, Onondaga leaders said they would use a favorable decision to negotiate an eventual monetary settlement with the state. Hill said the Onondaga population is growing and the nation needs more land to expand. It would only acquire land from willing buyers, Hill said.

Chief Oren Lyons said the nation expected it would take three to five years to obtain a decision. After that, the tribe will decide what it’s next step will be and how much of a settlement it will seek.

The filing of the claim came on the same day that New York Assembly members held the first of three public hearings on Pataki’s proposed land claim settlements with five other tribes. The state Senate has already conducted public hearings on the deals, which would allow the tribes to operate Las Vegas-style casinos in the Catskills.

Last year, Pataki reached a series of settlements with the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York, the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma, the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin, the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians and the Akwesasne Mohawks. In February, the governor introduced sweeping legislation to carry out those settlements and authorize the creation of five casinos in the Catskills.

In return, the tribes agreed to drop their shares of land-claim lawsuits involving 350,000 acres of ancestral land in Cayuga, Seneca, Madison, Oneida, Franklin and St. Lawrence counties and negotiate tax parity compacts for the sales of alcohol, cigarettes and gasoline to non-Indians.

The deals require approval of the state Legislature and Congress by Sept. 1.

Hill and other Onondaga leaders on Friday reiterated their opposition to casinos.

“It is New York’s strategy to split us up,” Hill said. “Divide and conquer. You can see the casino deals are splitting nations.”

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On the Net:

Onondaga Indian Nation: www.onondaganation.org

AP-ES-03-11-05 1607EST

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