DATE: Friday, March 28, 1997                TAG: 9703280615

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS

                                            LENGTH:   73 lines

VIRGINIA

Mattaponi Indians

invoke 17th century

treaties in dispute

KING WILLIAM - Virginia's Mattaponi Indians, the descendants of natives who greeted the first English settlers in North America, have raised a pair of 17th century treaties in a fight against a proposed reservoir.

In a letter to state Attorney General James S. Gilmore III, the tribe said the reservoir in King William County is an intrusion into a three-mile buffer zone around its 150-acre reservation.

According to the letter, the Articles of Peace between England's King Charles II and ``several Indian Kings and Queens'' established the buffer in 1677. The tribe also cited a 1646 Treaty of Peace that it said obligates the state to serve the tribe's interests as its trustee.

``We feel like our treaty rights have been violated for hundreds of years,'' Mattaponi Assistant Chief Carl T. Custalow said Wednesday.

The tribe honors the treaties each year by delivering an annual tribute of beaver pelts, venison or other game to the governor in a ceremony that has become an autumn tradition in Richmond.

Newport News is seeking to build the 1,500-acre reservoir. The water would serve Newport News, Hampton, Williamsburg and the counties of James City, York and New Kent. The reservoir would get up to 75 million gallons a day from the Mattaponi River.

Mark Miner, a spokesman for Gilmore, said the issues raised in the letter are being reviewed.

David Morris, project director for the reservoir at Newport News Waterworks, said his office also was reviewing the letter.

CENTRAL

Lawmaker's words about

women, blacks, draw ire

RICHMOND - A Republican state lawmaker trying to drum up partisan spirit has caused a furor by calling a group of Democrats ``militant women and militant blacks.''

In a speech to Henry County Republicans last week, Del. Frank M. Ruff of Mecklenburg was trying to inspire fellow party members to find someone to run against rookie Democratic Del. Barnie K. Day of Patrick County.

Ruff said Day has fallen under the liberals' sway and does not represent the interests of conservative voters. Democrats ``sat Barnie Day in the most liberal spot of the House, surrounded by militant women and militant blacks,'' Ruff is quoted as saying in the Martinsville Bulletin.

The remarks, made during what Ruff apparently thought was a closed meeting, have infuriated the female and black lawmakers who sit near Day on the Democratic side of the House. They have called for an apology.

Ruff said he did not mean to disparage any other lawmakers.

``If somebody called me militantly conservative, I would have no problem with that,'' he said. ``I didn't mean it in any negative terms, just that they are far more liberal than most of Virginia.''

SOUTHWEST

Eight receive prison time

for drug dealing at parties

ROANOKE - Seven young people and the father of one of them were given prison terms for supplying or selling drugs at dance parties.

The eight defendants were convicted of dealing cocaine and other drugs for Eric McCoy, 22. McCoy, who pleaded guilty in December to selling cocaine, LSD, marijuana, cocaine and other drugs, was sentenced to six years, eight months.

Among the others sentenced was Thomas Brock Frederick, 23, of Virginia Beach, who supplied McCoy with cocaine. Frederick was sentenced to six years, eight months.

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