Tribal leaders call for data sovereignty after GPTCA meeting exposes THPO crisis

RAPID CITY – The Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association, Inc. (GPTCA) held their 2026 Summer Quarterly Business Meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn in Rapid City July 10 and 11, 2026. Because there were only five of the sixteen member tribes present Chairman of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Chairman of GPTCA Frank Star Comes Out ruled there weren’t enough members present to constitute a quorum, and the session would be informational only.

Star Comes Out briefly pointed to the success of this year’s gathering at Greasy Grass, noting that tribes came together in a way he said hadn’t been seen in 150 years. That kind of unity, he argued, is the way tribal nations need to move forward.

One of the issues on the two-day agenda was what tribal representatives characterized as a systemic crisis in how Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPOs) are functioning across the Great Plains, in relation both to outside agencies and to their own tribal leadership.

There is a fundamental problem of who controls cultural data generated through Section 106 consultation of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). As framed by moderator Tim Mentz, Sr., the core question is: when a federal agency like the Air Force comes to the table, “who controls the cultural information that consultation generates, and who gets to decide where it goes afterwards?” He situated this in the NHPA and its Section 106/304 framework: agencies must consult tribes on historic properties and may withhold sensitive location data, but the law itself distinguishes between consulting on effects and disclosing site data. That gap is precisely where data sovereignty is being violated.

Mentz, Sr. outlined the 2022 Sentinel Programmatic Agreement, which covers missile fields in seven states and lists 63 tribes as concurring parties; on paper it promises confidentiality “to the maximum extent allowed by law,” but tribes say their cultural data is being siphoned, redistributed, and sometimes weaponized against them. One of the sharpest responses came from the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe’s THPO, Robert Knight. Mentz, Sr read from Knight’s May letter to the Air Force rejecting a Sentinel related request to share Flandreau’s field survey data with other tribes and with Tetra Tech, the Air Force’s cultural resource contractor, arguing that the information is proprietary and shared only for protection and planning. Citing Section 304 of the National Historic Preservation Act and the Sentinel Programmatic Agreement (PA), Flandreau insists that Traditional Cultural Property (TCP) boundaries must be drawn by Oceti Šakowi. tribes and that any TCP report remain a restricted record held solely by Flandreau and the Air Force.

Tetra Tech is a major for profit engineering and consulting firm that holds federal contracts to manage environmental reviews and cultural resource surveys for agencies like the U.S. Air Force. In projects such as the Sentinel missile upgrade, the company sits between the government and tribal nations, collecting and interpreting Indigenous cultural site data in ways critics say prioritize project delivery over tribal data sovereignty.

Multiple speakers detailed on the ground abuses. Sean Contrares, Tribal Cultural Specialist for the Upper Sioux said there has been no reporting on tribal sites. He described the Sentinel project at F.E. Warren: Air Force and Tetra Tech trying to move into construction while still stuck at the first step of identification; shovel testing planned at clearly identified burial sites—twice—because the Air Force failed to properly flag those locations as no dig. He recounted that after raising the first incident in October 2025, the Air Force promised new safeguards, yet the same violation nearly occurred again “a little over a month ago.” He also cited what he thought was retaliatory behavior after pulling back from attending the bi weekly meetings and objected to unauthorized data sharing, scheduled site visits for Upper Sioux, Flandreau, and Rosebud TCSs were all cancelled.

Contrares said the Air Force shared tribal data in meetings despite Upper Sioux’s written request to discuss controlled ways to reference sites without disclosing full information. An insincere apology followed, but no structural remedy. As a result, Upper Sioux halted providing data to the Air Force and is now recording on its own, with the stance that data use must be on tribal terms and under tribal policy.

Other TCSs echoed this pattern. OST TCS Loni Weston said the Sentinel “site revisit” work at F.E. Warren, coordinated through the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML), where she and a small team are tasked with drawing boundaries around other tribes’ previously recorded sites—functionally “authenticating” those findings—without that process being clearly grounded in the PA or transparently explained to THPOs. She recommended that Air Force directly consult THPOs on the purpose, process, and data fate of these revisits; that evaluations and any changes be reported back to the originating tribes; and that participation by non tribal “TCSs” and outside PhD archaeologists be fully disclosed and subject to tribal permission.

There are concerns about older existing infrastructure on the Bridger pipeline. Weston also described an archaeologist’s site form that claimed to identify “constellation effigies” such as the Little Dipper and Cassiopeia within a stone circle complex, purely on non tribal interpretation. She calls this a misappropriation of cultural knowledge. She also notes that although their agreement says TCSs “who wish to be given access will be,” she has been denied access to the one two three survey data platform despite repeated requests— while other tribes on the project sometimes side with the CRM firm against her efforts to assert Oglala’s data rights.

The siphoning of tribal knowledge into non tribal hands is a recurring theme. Tim Mentz, Jr., a cultural monitor and historical researcher, traced how since the 1990s tribes have often only gained access to the field via para archaeological trainings—and once there, archaeologists shadow TCSs. TCSs point out rings, effigies, burials; archaeologists then measure, classify, and encode that information into state or corporate systems. Over time, archaeologists have shifted from calling everything “tipi rings” to confidently labeling “crescent moons,” “effigies,” and “whistles,” all learned from tribal specialists. Yet the resulting data and geolocations are held by state historic preservation offices (SHPOs) or CRM firms like Tetra Tech. One example Mentz, Jr. cited was the Northern Plains Connector Line, which logged more than 55,000 TCS hours across 19 tribes yet still left those tribes with little tribal controlled data or comprehensive TCP reporting.

Both Mentz, Jr and Steve Vance, long-time THPO for Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (CRST) said that this isn’t just procedural harm but spiritual and intergenerational harm.

They describe sites where smallpox victims lie; situations where surveyors have fought and drawn blood at sacred locations; elders warning not to disturb particular areas; and the long term consequences of treating sacred stone features as “cool sites” or archaeological curiosities. Vance recounted a BIA/agency meeting in Pierre where a so called “TCP Bible” produced in Minnesota, full of explicit ceremony detail, is now widely used by agencies, commodifying ritual knowledge for outsiders’ use. He warns that numbers of tobacco ties, lodge orientations, and ceremonial specifics are being codified into documents in ways that never should have been disclosed.

Alongside external abuses, there is internal crisis within THPO/TCS ranks. Multiple speakers pointed to TCSs showing up intoxicated or high, using cannabis or other drugs while walking sacred sites, sitting in trucks instead of surveying, or openly saying “$500 a day, I’ll play Indian any time.” Vance called for random testing on federal connected projects and vowed that anyone he catches under the influence on Cheyenne River work “will never work for Cheyenne River again.” Mentz argued tribes must start blacklisting archaeologists, CRM firms, and even their own TCSs who are compromising sites through negligence or substance use. Several speakers insist that no one under the influence would be allowed into a ceremony or Sundance, and that the same standard must apply to field work at sacred places.

Star Comes Out agreed there was a significant lack of transparency and accountability between THPO programs and elected tribal leadership. He said many chairmen have no idea what their THPOs are doing on Sentinel or other major projects until problems surface and was shocked by stories of field conduct and unreported negotiations. He stressed that THPOs must report regularly to leadership—not so leadership can control them, but so they can back them politically and legally, including by convening true government to government consultations with federal agencies, not Zoom “check the box” calls.

Numerous members called for creating a Great Plains THPO/ data sovereignty body. Previous efforts had stalled for lack of funding and a building. Vance said that while each THPO is funded only for on reservation acreage, NHPA explicitly allows tribes to consult and identify sites “regardless of location” if they can establish cultural association. Attorney Mario Gonzalez noted that this in a broader understanding of Aboriginal title beyond the 1851 and 1868 treaty lines, including traditional use extending into Colorado, Montana, and beyond. He called for a comprehensive list of federal undertakings (Sentinel, Bridger, Keystone, uranium, rare earths, etc.) and plainer language explanations so community members can see what’s happening.

Star Comes Out tasked Mentz, Sr. and Gonzalez to draft a charter for a regional THPO/data sovereignty coalition under the GPTCA, with function including: tracking all federal undertakings in Oceti Šakowi. homelands; coordinating joint tribal positions; developing shared data sovereignty standards; and tightening ethics and reporting expectations for THPOs and TCSs.

The emerging response was a call for unified regional governance across Indian Country, a hard line approach to data sovereignty, stronger tribal policy and ethics codes, and a reset of how THPO work is funded, scoped, and politically backed, so tribes—not contractors or agencies—decide what is significant, how it is documented, and who gets to see it.

At the close of the first day, GPTCA Executive Director A. Gay Kingman said, “the Alliance is back,” echoing Star Come Out’s words at the outset of the meeting, in a region where both the Black Hills and the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Association bring many different nations into the same circle, their comments framed the meeting not just as a technical fight over data and treaties, but as an attempt to rebuild a working alliance across the Plains.

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

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