Interior Department officials recently sent a letter to my family members announcing they planned to remove the mineral rights from my mother's estate, property on the Fort Berthold Reservation held in trust by the department for my brothers, sisters and me.

They gave us 60 days to object to the changes. The notice to remove "improperly included property" arrived after an oil lease had been signed and a well site had been staked on the land - where the Fort Berthold Reservation and the entire region are in the throes of an oil boom.

My sister called to tell me about the letter, since she was the only person who received a copy from a probate judge in the Office of Hearing Appeals in Billings, Mont. With a stroke of pure luck, I was going to be at Fort Berthold the next day. It would give me time to check into the matter at the local Bureau of Indian Affairs agency office.

It turned out, I needed all 60 days.

Now, though, the Interior Department plans to shorten probate-related deadlines to even quicker 30- and 15-day time frames. That includes review periods for improperly included property, appraisals, rehearing petitions, rehearing decisions, purchase options and summary probate decisions.

"The turnaround, for most probates, is unusual to try to do them that fast," said Lisa Lopez, the realty officer and acting superintendent at the Fort Berthold Agency. "It's people's right to be there at the hearing. If you make it more difficult, then you are going to see more appeals and more probates reopened. That's not efficient."

I've been thumbing through the pages in the Code of Federal Regulations, titles 25 and 43, dense volumes that guide executive departments and federal agencies in governing the lives of millions of Native people.

The regulations aren't easy to understand.

Anyone who understood existing regulations should be braced for sweeping procedural changes. "Twenty-five CFR worked for a long time; to change it that dramatically, a lot of individuals don't know what changes are about to be made," said Helen Sanders, an original allotted landowner on the Quinalt Reservation in Washington. "You can't react to something you haven't seen."

Comment periods were extended at least twice, said Liz Appel of the Interior Department's Office of Regulatory Management. The new regulations should be given final approval by Nov. 1, she said. They will then be posted on the Federal Register.

It wasn't easy to make the department's current 60-day deadline. It took more than 30 days just to get estate documents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs office at Fort Berthold.

And that included daily visits to the agency office during the one week I was there. I live in Montana, a 12-hour drive from Fort Berthold. I didn't get everything I needed, so I had to have paperwork sent to me once I left the reservation. That took another three weeks.

"It is singularly unfair for the department to demand all 'time saving or streamlining' from those adversely impacted by difficult-to-comprehend laws that largely benefit the government or third parties," according to a critique issued by the Indian Land Working Group, a nonprofit trust land management organization based in Albuquerque, N.M.

I accomplished a lot despite great odds.

To begin with, the department failed to find correct addresses for me and my family members. Their rules call for proper notification when the property and assets are worth more than $2,000. The removal of mineral rights was no small matter, potentially worth years of oil royalties.

Another problem: I didn't understand why or how the Interior Department could remove mineral rights three years after my mother's probate had been closed. I was extremely fortunate to know some Indian probate experts. Also, my stepfather, who has an interest in the estate, is an attorney.

One probate expert told me to ask the BIA for specific documents, including the allotment and estate record. That piece of paper contained critical information about my mother's land. It showed two deeds approved by the bureau in 1976 that ultimately defined my mother's ownership of the land and minerals.

The Interior Department lawyers who decided to remove the minerals had not even seen the 1976 deeds; instead, they relied on an outdated deed written in 1951.

As the 60-day deadline drew near, I submitted a nine-page response to the Office of Hearing and Appeals. My stepfather also sent a letter, objecting to the probate changes. My family members were notified in August that the BIA acted on incomplete information.

We were told we rightfully owned the land and mineral rights.

With shortened probate-review periods just around the corner, thousands of other landowners aren't going to be as lucky.

(Reach reporter Jodi Rave at 800-366-7186 or jodi.rave@;lee.net.)