Blogtown, PDX

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Portland Portland Residents Weigh in on Casino in Cascade Locks

Posted by The Unpaid Intern on Thu, Mar 13 at 7:30 PM

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Department of the Interior are holding hearings on the Warm Springs tribes’ $389 million proposal to build a casino in Cascade Locks. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) was laid out a few weeks ago and the federal government is giving people 90 days to voice their concerns.

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Here at the Lloyd Center Doubletree Hotel, the crowd is in the hundreds and scores were turned away because of capacity limits.

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A major issue is that the casino site is about an hour away from the Warm Springs tribes’ reservation, which has called into question the legality of the plan.

The Warm Springs tribe is convinced the casino is legal and can lift their community out of “third world” level economic hardship. The plan is supposed to create 2,000 jobs. Many tribesman are here in support of the plan.

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Opponents of the development plan have been giving testimony for the last hour. Most have complained of the potential damage to the Columbia Gorge. The DEIS claims that the casino will have “low to medium” impact on the scenic views of the gorge and contribute “incrementally” to traffic along I-84. Many here don’t seem convinced.

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After tonight, there is one additional hearing, and then the BIA will write a Final Environmental Impact Statement and hope the U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who has a history of opposing off-reservation casino sites, will sign off on it.

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Comments

Where was the hearing?

Posted by Toilet Joe | March 14, 2008 11:59 AM

bleah, never mind, found it in your piece eventually.

Posted by Toilet Joe | March 14, 2008 12:42 PM

Do Native Americans realize how goofy they look when they show up to meetings in all that Native dress?

Hard to take them serious!

Posted by YaaYaaYaaYaaYaaYaaYaa | March 14, 2008 12:44 PM

Do you realize how 'goofy' you look when you make comments like that?

Posted by Amy J. Ruiz | March 14, 2008 1:13 PM

$389 Million and the only thing they can do to pull their community out of the "third world" is build an off site casino?

I realize they don't necessarily have $389 million, but they can somehow get their hands on it. Is a casino their only option? Making other people poor so they don't have to be.

Leave the casinos in Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City. We don't need them everywhere.

Posted by Ritchie | March 14, 2008 2:03 PM

Oh yes we do need them here. If we put a nice casino in Portland I'll bet a lot of our tax woes will be over. School funding, mental health funding, supPortland bum funding, police funding, all of it. Then the city would at last become a 24 hour city overnight.

Posted by schting | March 14, 2008 3:05 PM

What people fail to realize is the many, many professionals including, fish biologists, air quality specialist, economists, natural resource specialist and others have determined through the Environmental Impact Statement that the environmental effect of this project is not significant. In addition, the Warm Springs Tribes have designed the building and operations to be as environmentally sensitive as possible and dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to environmental concerns. It is amazing how much misinformation and exaggeration is there. Well funded special interest groups see to that. I encourage those that are truly concerned to visit www.gorgecasinoeis.com and to read the environmental impact statement. The facts are there.

Posted by CLSupporter | March 14, 2008 10:59 PM

Posted by CLSupporter | March 14, 2008 11:00 PM

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