State Historic Preservation Director Katherine Slick said Friday she has concluded that the Bureau of Indian Affairs had no authority to stop demolition of buildings on the Santa Fe Indian School campus.

In July, the school began tearing down 15 of the oldest buildings — some dating to the late 1800s — along Cerrillos Road.

A month later, Slick wrote the BIA's Southwestern Region director in Albuquerque to clarify whether Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act applied to the decision of the All Indian Pueblo Council, which runs the school on behalf of New Mexico's 19 pueblos, to raze the structures.

The 1966 law, which created the National Register of Historic Places, the list of National Historic Landmarks and the State Historic Preservation Offices, was enacted to preserve historical and archaeological sites in the United States. Section 106 requires federal agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties.

BIA Regional Director Larry Morrin, who responded to Slick's letter last week, said that because Congress mandated in 2000 that the campus be held in trust for the pueblos, the BIA had no right to intervene on how the buildings are maintained or the decision to demolish them.

In his letter Morrin wrote, "The Pueblos are the beneficial owners of the land held in trust by the United States and they can use the land according to their needs without intervention from the federal government." Section 206 compliance is "not required" because the BIA did not transfer the property out of federal ownership, and holding land in trust is not a "federal undertaking."

"Now, more than ever before," Morrin added, "tribes have their own financial resources, and are using them for development activities that do not require federal approvals. Hence, such activities are outside the realm of federal compliance requirements. Tribes have varied views of historic preservation, which are addressed according to their own tribal and cultural standards."

Slick said that it took many readings of the letter and the law — as well as discussions with the staff of U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation — before they all agreed that the BIA "had no responsibility under federal law to assure that historic resources had a protection trail with them."

While this should put to rest the argument that the BIA should have stopped, or at least delayed, the Santa Fe Indian School demolition, she said, there are some opportunities for preservation in the future. Morrin, for example, has offered to facilitate a meeting between the State Historic Preservation office and the pueblos to discuss three remaining buildings on the 115-acre campus that date to the 1930s.

Slick is also hoping to find out if the BIA has information in its archives that can be used to create a historic document on the buildings and their contents, including art that was prepared in or on them.

Slick said she would like to know if there are any remaining historic properties at the site that might fit into future development, or be saved or salvaged if that's not possible.

"We all need to figure out how to heal this," Slick said, "so the public understands that none of us dropped the ball."

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.