Clark County pans Cowlitz casino study

The Clark County commissioners make no bones about it: The proposed Cowlitz casino-resort would not be a welcome addition.

In comments sent this week to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the county says the casino-resort alternatives described in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) “do not serve the tribe’s interests, nor do they serve the interests of the community.”

CARS has focused largely on community impacts, and Clark County hits on many high points regarding transportation, housing, social services and schools.

Community impacts
The county’s comments repeatedly note that the Final EIS fails to address most of its previous comments. Its criticisms include the following:

• “The Final EIS underestimates the potential need for social services and housing for workers who will make wages near poverty level.”
• “The EIS masks the practical necessity for the majority of casino-resort workers to move to Clark County.”
• “[T]here is no discussion of how the jurisdictions will deal with the need for almost 3,000 units of affordable housing for new employees and their households.”
• “These impacts will ripple to other providers of education and social services. Multiple school districts may be influenced by an influx of children of casino-resort employees.”
• “[T]he Final EIS fails to adequately portray or mitigate the traffic impacts on the site.”
• “The Final EIS does an inadequate job of assessing impacts of the replacement of the I-5 bridge, which will coincide with the development and opening of the casino-resort.”

An appendix titled “Transportation Arterial Plan comments” states that traffic to the proposed development would exceed the capacity of the interstate between La Center and Ridgefield “likely triggering failure.”

The county’s comments extend to the potential loss of local leadership. In a section regarding La Center, the county writes, “A large casino resort near La Center, operated by a Connecticut corporation [Mohegan] and owned by a tribe that has a minimal local resident population [Cowlitz], cannot mitigate the impact of the loss of local business and leadership through mitigation dollars.”

Please write
The deadline for submitting comments is Aug. 11. If you have not yet sent yours, please do so now. Comments should include the caption “FEIS Comments, Cowlitz Indian Tribe Trust Acquisition and Casino Project” and be addressed to:

Mr. Stanley Speaks, Northwest Regional Director
Bureau of Indian Affairs911 NE 11th Ave.
Portland, OR 97232

We encourage you to send copies to:

Mr. James Cason, Associate Deputy Secretary (James_Cason@ios.doi.gov), and Mr. George Skibine, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs (George_Skibine@ios.doi.gov). Both can be reached via U.S. mail at:

Department of the Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240

Read Clark County's comments.

Read "County continues to criticize Cowlitz
casino study" in The Columbian.

Read The Columbian
editorial "Complaints about casino statement put
focus on Connecticut tribe's role."

FEIS comment period extended to Aug. 11

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has extended the comment period for the proposed Cowlitz casino Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) until Aug. 11, 2008.

The initial comment period was to have ended June 30, 2008, but the agency announced a 30-day extension after receiving a request to do so from Hon. Brian Baird (D-Wash.). This week BIA published the Aug. 11 closing date in the Federal Register, providing several additional days for stakeholders to make their thoughts known about the Final EIS.

CARS and many other stakeholders have registered disappointment in the Final EIS (it fails almost across the board to address very real problems) and have asked the BIA to withdraw the document in favor of a supplemental EIS -- the formal replacement for an EIS the agency finds does not measure up to its criteria. In that regard we would ask again that you do one of two things:

1) Now that the extra time is available, submit a comment on the Final EIS, available at http://www.cowlitzeis.com.

2) Join us in requesting that the Department of the Interior (DOI) withdraw the Final EIS, start over and produce a Supplemental Draft EIS.

This is likely the last time within the environmental process that we will have an opportunity to tell DOI what we think about the EIS, the process and the casino. Please take advantage of it with us.

Comments should include the caption "FEIS Comments, Cowlitz Indian Tribe Trust Acquisition and Casino Project" and be addressed to:

Stanley Speaks, Northwest Regional Director
Bureau of Indian Affairs
911 NE 11th Ave.
Portland, OR 97232

We encourage you to send copies to:

Mr. James Cason, Associate Deputy Secretary (James_Cason@ios.doi.gov), and Mr. George Skibine, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs (George_Skibine@ios.doi.gov). Both can be reached via U.S. mail at:

Department of the Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240

Now is the time to voice your casino concerns!

As you probably know, the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed Cowlitz casino was released May 30. This is just one more step in the process, and it does not mean the casino project has been approved. A 30-day public comment period is required under federal law, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has extended it to 60 days -- to the end of July.

This is extremely important. We simply cannot afford to let this EIS stand in its present form, and this might be our final chance to appeal to the BIA in a formal way. PLEASE TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO DO AT LEAST ONE OF THE FOLLOWING THINGS:

1. Submit a comment on the Final EIS, available at http://www.cowlitzeis.com.

2. Request that the Department of the Interior (DOI) withdraw the Final EIS, go back to the drawing board and produce a Supplemental Draft EIS.

Why a Supplemental EIS? The most striking thing about the tribe's Final EIS is how unresponsive it is to the comments and concerns voiced over the past few years by concerned citizens and governmental agencies.

Two problems with this document are the lack of alternative sites being considered (CARS believes the tribe should consider land in its federally adjudicated aboriginal homeland along the Cowlitz River) and the lack of acknowledgement of the impacts this project would have on the interstates and the Columbia River bridges.

Because those and other concerns have not been addressed, CARS is asking DOI to withdraw the Final EIS and address these and other issues in a Supplemental Draft EIS. Please see our blog "Why we want DOI to withdraw the Final EIS" to read more specifics.

If you submitted a comment on the Draft EIS in 2006, consider looking at the relevant sections in the Final EIS (e.g. air quality, transportation, socioeconomics), and see whether they address your concerns. If not, resubmit your comments, note that you are dissatisfied with the Final EIS and ask DOI to withdraw it and produce a Supplemental EIS.

If you have not submitted a comment, check out the Final EIS (begin with the "Executive Summary and Table" or section 4 "Environmental Consequences"), and write a comment requesting that DOI withdraw the document.

Why is this important? The BIA needs to know that citizens remain frustrated and angry that our comments -- both individual and collective -- have had no impact on the Cowlitz developers, and that our serious concerns have not been addressed.

Comments should include the caption "FEIS Comments, Cowlitz Indian Tribe Trust Acquisition and Casino Project" and be addressed to:

Stanley Speaks, Northwest Regional Director
Bureau of Indian Affairs
911 NE 11th Ave.
Portland, OR 97232

We encourage you to send copies to Mr. James Cason, Associate Deputy Secretary (James_Cason@ios.doi.gov), and Mr. George Skibine, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs (George_Skibine@ios.doi.gov). Both can be reached via U.S. mail at:

Department of the Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240

Why we want DOI to withdraw the Final EIS

1. The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) still does not contain a reasonable alternative site. The listed alternative of the Ridgefield junction with Interstate 5 -- 2 miles south of the proposed La Center site -- is saddled with even more problems than the La Center site. It is not a serious alternative. Moreover, neither site is anywhere near the tribe's federally adjudicated aboriginal lands. Lewis County is the point nearest the most Cowlitz Tribe members, and there is plenty of land available.

2. In its effort to imply a strong tribal connection to Clark County, the EIS continues to use erroneous information that has already been debunked multiple times by the Department of the Interior (DOI).

3. The EIS is based on the tribe's highly exaggerated Unmet Needs Statement and Business Plan, which suddenly appeared last year -- long after the public comment period on the Draft EIS was closed. These documents were used to justify placing the proposed casino near the lucrative Vancouver-Portland market and to rule out legitimate alternatives. (See "Regional BIA, developers cook books trying to save La Center site.") The public never had an opportunity to comment on these documents before the Final EIS came out at the end of May, six years after the Cowlitz Tribe first applied to have land at the La Center junction taken into trust.

4. The EIS depends on Clark County's now-overturned plan to change the land at the proposed casino site from agricultural to urban. In May, a state Growth Board re-declared the land agricultural, a designation that will make it impossible for the developers to get services, such as utilities, police and roads. (See "Casino Final EIS suffers major blow.")

5. The traffic analysis absurdly underestimates how great an impact the casino would have on area roadways -- particularly Interstate 5 and Interstate 205, and their bridges over the Columbia. The Supplemental Traffic Impact Study says 92 percent of traffic would come from the south-most of that would be over the Columbia River bridges.