Columbia Gorge casino gets initial OK
PORTLAND – A draft environmental impact statement concludes that the Cascade Locks site sought by the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs for Oregon’s first off-reservation casino would best meet tribal needs.
Tribal lawyers said Friday the proposal written for the Bureau of Indian Affairs is within federal environmental guidelines, a claim project opponents Friends of the Columbia Gorge contested.
New federal guidelines “raise even greater doubts about the off-reservation casino proposal in the Columbia River Gorge and favor on-reservation alternatives,” said Michael Lang, the group’s environmental director.
“It’s our responsibility to protect this national treasure for future generations and not allow it to be overrun by casinos and resorts,” he said.
His group and others claim the Cascade Locks site would generate traffic that would damage the gorge and could harm protected fish runs. The draft impact statement admits to the latter possibility during the construction phase.
The draft statement is a step toward project approval but by no means assures it.
A week of hearings is scheduled in early March. The bureau will issue a final statement after the 90-day comment period. That will become part of a package considered by the secretary of the interior, former Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, who has said he generally opposes off-reservation casinos but has allowed a handful from among 30 proposed, including the Warm Springs project, to advance.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed a compact with the tribes in 2005 supporting the Cascade Locks proposal.
The tribes want to pay for the government to take 25 acres in an industrial zone owned by the Port of Cascade Locks into trust so the casino can be built there. Tribal attorneys said a price had been agreed on but would not divulge it. The tribes also would lease 35 adjacent acres for parking and other purposes.
The tribes say they need the estimated annual average of $77 million the casino would generate through 2018 to shore up creaky tribal infrastructure and plug an annual $26 million shortfall in costs of providing basic tribal services.
The tribes envision an $850 million fund over 25 years, mostly for scholarships for Oregon students, and a community fund to offset costs that may arise because of the presence of the proposed $389 million project 40 miles east of the lucrative Portland market.
Tribal attorney Howard Arnett said Friday the project meets federal guidelines and has the required support of local communities and governments within 10 miles of the site.
Jan. 3 guidelines issued by Assistant Secretary of the Interior Carl Artman say, among other things, that permission for off-reservation casinos should consider whether they are within an unspecified commutable distance of the reservation to help funnel jobs to tribal members.
Opponents say the town of Warm Springs, where many tribal members live, is too far from Cascade Locks– about 100 miles each way – to meet that standard.
Len Bergstein, a Portland lobbyist and Warm Springs spokesman on casino issues, said the distance to the reservation border is less than 40 miles and that tribal members often commute much farther than that.
The guidelines say incompatible uses might include areas adjacent to land used or zoned for national parks and monuments or designated conservation areas.
Arnett said the provisions are merely guidelines.
The act establishing the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, he said, stipulates that “development is supposed to occur in urban areas. That is exactly where this project is located.”
He said the government is not required to deny an application that is near such parks or conservation areas, only to consider their impacts.
Lang disagreed, saying the guidelines “are an interpretation of federal regulations, and they are the law.”
An August 2006 letter from the National Marine Fisheries Service to Stanley Speaks, Northwest regional BIA director, took issue with a BIA conclusion that the Cascade Locks proposal is unlikely to harm protected Columbia River fish runs or their habitat.
“Based on information provided, NMFS does not concur with the BIA’s determination of ‘not likely to adversely affect’ ” protected species, the letter said.
It said the BIA provided insufficient information to evaluate potential effects or to suggest ways to modify them.
Tribal lawyer Ellen Grover said Friday she had not seen the letter.
Tribal chairman Ron Suppah criticized opponents with “narrow interests or greed,” singling out the Grand Ronde tribe west of Portland, whose Spirit Mountain Casino, Oregon’s most popular tourist draw, could lose business to Cascade Locks.
“Our cause is just,” he said. “Their interest is that it will impact them more drastically than I believe to be true.”
Tribal estimates are that the Cascade Locks option could create 2,000 jobs in the region. Officials in Cascade Locks, which has been losing population and businesses for years, say the casino or something like it is needed to keep the town alive.
Among alternatives to the Cascade Locks proposal considered in the draft statement were:
•Do nothing, with the tribe continuing to operate its Kah-Nee-Ta Resort and Casino near Warm Springs.
•Build a casino on the Hood River land the tribe owns, which would be smaller than the Cascade Locks proposal and, some say, would damage the beauty of the scenic area.
•Build a larger casino near Kah-Nee-Ta, which tribal officials say is too remote to generate enough income to meet tribal needs. This option is supported by Friends of the Columbia Gorge and the diverse Coalition for Oregon’s Future.