BIA schedules five hearings on gorge casino proposal

WASHINGTON - The Bureau of Indian Affairs has scheduled five public hearings this month on a proposal by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs to build a $300 million casino in Cascade Locks.

The hearings will be held Sept. 15 to Sept. 28 in Cascade Locks, Portland, Hood River, and Stevenson, Wash., as the agency prepares an environmental impact statement on the proposed casino in the scenic Columbia River Gorge.

The Interior Department temporarily blocked the proposal in May, saying it cannot rule on the merits of the plan until it first rules that the off-reservation land can be taken into trust for gambling - a process that could take years.  Residents of Cascade Locks hope the casino will reverse an outgoing tide of businesses, people and services from the Columbia River town. And the tribes say the planned casino - just a 45-minute drive from Portland - would be a vast improvement over their present casino on a remote site on their reservation in Central Oregon.

The plan faces opposition from a coalition that represents a wide range of interests including environmentalists, fishing groups, gambling opponents and a tribe whose casino could lose business if one is built in Cascade Locks.

One of the opponents, Friends of the Columbia River Gorge, posted a notice of the hearings on its Web site urging critics to attend the public hearings and voice their opposition.

"It is critical that we pack every meeting with casino opponents, and that we make sure that any (environmental impact statement) addresses all environmental impacts of the casino and its related development," the group wrote. "We also want to send the message to the Department of the Interior that Oregon and Washington residents overwhelmingly want to keep this mega-casino out of the Gorge!"

The group said the 500,000-square-foot casino and hotel could harm water and air quality, as well as hurt endangered species, fish and wildlife habitat, wetlands and "scenic values."

The project is likely to lead to population growth, increased development and traffic, as well as expansion of nearby Interstate 84, the group said.

A representative of the Warm Springs could not be reached Thursday.

But tribal Chairman Ron Suppah has said the tribes have been granted fishing and hunting rights in Cascade Locks since they ceded the land in an 1855 treaty with the federal government.  "The charge that we would 'trash' the very place that we are from and where we have for a millennium gathered the traditional foods that form the basis of our Indian way of life is deeply offensive," he wrote in a June letter to his counterpart at the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, one of the groups opposing the Warm Springs plan. The Grand Ronde's Spirit Mountain casino is currently the closest casino to Portland, about 60 miles southwest of the city.

The public hearings are scheduled Sept. 15 and 17 in Cascade Locks; Sept. 19 in Portland; Sept. 21 in Hood River and Sept. 28 in Stevenson, Wash.

Written comments will be accepted until Sept. 30 and should be addressed to June Boynton, Environmental Protection Specialist, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 911 NE Eleventh Ave., Portland, OR 97232.

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