The Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians are fuming over a General Services Administration proposal to split up the former Coos Head Air National Guard station into parcels and deed it only a portion of the now-unused land.

Tribal Administrator Frances Somday II said the tribes received communications from the GSA indicating the federal agency would support granting about one-third of the 43-acre property to the tribes. The two-paragraph memo does not indicate what the GSA intends to do with the remainder of the site but Somday said the tribes, which entered an application to have the entire property deeded over, believe the proposal conflicts with federal laws.

"It probably is their attempt at a compromise," said Somday. "Our position is if they can support (our) proposal then it should be a transfer of all the property."

Somday said the tribes requested a meeting with the GSA and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the tribes' sponsor, in order to determine what basis the agency used for making its determination. The BIA did not return repeated phone calls for comment.

GSA Regional Director Bill Du Bray said that after reviewing the tribes' application, it appears they can accomplish their goals of using the property for education and historical use with the parcel that has been offered. He said the only thing holding up the transfer is a request by the tribes to have the property deeded at no cost.

"Our analysis of their request, of what they're going to use the property for, the piece of land ... we've offered them, we feel meets their needs," Du Bray said.

Located near the Charleston headlands, the 43-acre Coos Head property was closed by the Air National Guard in 1996 and has been coveted for its sweeping vistas of the Oregon coastline. In 2003, several groups applied for the property, which is being disposed of by the federal government.

In addition to the tribes, Coos County, the South Slough National Estuarine Interpretive Center and the Oregon Coastal Environments Awareness Network expressed interest in the property. Du Bray said GSA plans on beginning discussions for the disposal of the remainder of the former air base.

"We're going to proceed to start negotiations with the county for the rest of the property," Du Bray said.

The tribes already would have the property in ownership were it not for a secretarial error on the part of the BIA. The three-stage disposal process of federal property requires the GSA to consider federal agency requests before all others and the tribes' application should have been at the top of the list.

The tribes had worked for years on developing a proposal for the process and submitted it to the BIA, but that federal agency failed to mail the tribes' request for the property to the GSA within the necessary deadline. That opened up the surplus phase of the disposal, when the property became available to any entity that could garner federal sponsorship, including Coos County and the Oregon Coastal Environments Awareness Network.

The tribes sued, hoping to force the federal government to consider the application for Coos Head. In September 2003, the tribes' lawsuit was dismissed after the GSA consented to entertain their bid.

Somday said the tribes believe any decision to parcel out the property is in conflict with the Indian Self Determination Act and the process used for relinquishing excess federal property.

He said the tribes believe the GSA is mandated to give priority to other federal agencies who have requested property slated for excess, in this case, the tribes' request through the BIA.

"The excess phase is to provide that land to another federal agency in need of it so that the federal government doesn't need to spend money to get that property. The GSA has disregarded that requirement," Somday said.

The disposal of the property has been delayed, partly due to benzene that leaked from underground storage tanks owned by the military and contaminated the groundwater. The government has worked for several years to clean up the spill sites. The property is not expected to be cleared for disposal until 2006. Documents regarding the cleanup indicate the government expects to clean the benzene to meet air-quality standards but not the more stringent water-quality regulations.