·                                           County-Tribe agreement in jeopardy

·                                           Alternative sites should be explored

·                                           Fish First speaks out against casino

·                                           Federal rules use unsuitable criterion

·                                           BIA receives 2,000 DEIS comments

·                                           CARS distills DOI technical reports

·                     Check out the DEIS

·                     See the MOU between the Cowlitz Tribe and Clark County

·                     See the County resolution adopting & disclaiming the MOU

·                     See the County-Cowlitz Tribe supplemental MOU

·                     Reasons why you should care about this issue

·                     More about CARS

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County-Tribe agreement in jeopardy

A court ruling released Oct. 17 raises serious questions about the validity of the Cowlitz Tribe’s 2004 memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Clark County.

The appeals court ruling declared the MOU a “de facto amendment” to the county’s Comprehensive Plan and sent it to the Growth Management Hearings Board (which previously had said it did not have jurisdiction over the issue).

Now the suit will go before the board, which we believe will find that a casino-resort does not fit the proposed site under the county's Comprehensive Plan. All sides agree that the county commission did not follow the state-required public process to approve the MOU. The county has asked the court to reconsider its opinion.

Stay tuned for further developments.

Read the article in The Columbian.

Read the court opinion.

Alternative sites should be explored

Investors in the proposed Cowlitz casino-resort have focused their attention on the site at the Interstate 5-La Center junction. But given the Cowlitz Tribe’s lack of significant historic or modern connection to that land—evidenced by the findings published by the Department of the Interior and the Indian Claims Commission—they might be better off working to site their casino in a different area.

CARS is encouraging the casino developers to consider a location in the tribe’s true aboriginal homeland, in the vicinity of Toledo/Vader/Winlock. In a recent interview, Bob Whelan of the economic consulting group ECONorthwest said a casino at Vader would generate three times more than the average tribal casino in Washington state. In a study published earlier this year, ECONorthwest states:

"If the tribe’s trust land and project were established in Lewis County, instead of Clark County, more Cowlitz Indians would be able to work at the resort and casino. More would be able to access tribal health clinics, social services, tribal court, child welfare services, and participate in cultural and educational programs."

Why do the casino developers keep pressing for a casino at the La Center junction? The land there is owned by Cowlitz Tribe member David Barnett and his development partner, the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut. What about the rest of the Cowlitz Tribe? By focusing on the troubled La Center site— and no reasonable alternative site—Barnett and the Mohegan Tribe are holding the Cowlitz Tribe’s financial health hostage.

Read: CARS' “The case for an alternative site.”

Read: ECONorthwest’s “Alternative Site Analysis for Trust Land.”

Coming soon to our Web site: CARS’ video, “Proposed Cowlitz Casino: An Alternative Site”

Fish First speaks out against casino

Citing concerns about the impact a casino-resort at the La Center junction would have on endangered fish in the East Fork of the Lewis River, the board of directors for the conservation group Fish First voted unanimously to oppose the proposed Cowlitz casino.

Fish First board member Jack Kaeding wrote in a letter to CARS that the group’s primary concern is the anticipated half million gallons of effluent the proposed casino-resort would produce each day and the negative impacts it would have on East Fork water quality and fish. He said that the Draft Environmental Impact Statement did not address the group’s concerns.

“There are other locations the Cowlitz could locate their Casino,” Kaeding wrote, “but there is only one East Fork of the Lewis River in Clark County ... .”

Read Fish First’s comments on the DEIS.

Federal rules use unsuitable criterion

The Bureau of Indian Affairs released proposed rules in October softening a requirement that would have been impossible for the Cowlitz Tribe to fulfill at the La Center site.

Draft rules released in March would have required tribes to have 50 percent of their population living within 50 miles of an initial reservation or restored lands site. Cowlitz Tribe councilman Philip Harju made news when he balked at the proposed requirement. The Norwich ( Conn.) Bulletin paraphrased him saying “that would be almost impossible for the 3,500-member tribe unless it took downtown Seattle into trust.”

The new rules would enable tribes to receive restored lands or initial reservation designations for land within 25 miles of their headquarters. This is tailor-made for the Cowlitz Tribe, which has its headquarters at Longview. (They previously had been in Tacoma.) The distance from the tribe’s headquarters in Longview is within approximately 24 miles of the proposed casino site at La Center. If this newly added provision were struck, the tribe’s application would be rendered moot. Comments on the proposed rules are due at the Office of Indian Gaming Management on Dec. 4.

Read about the rules in The Columbian.

Read the new proposed rules.

BIA receives 2,000 DEIS comments

The Bureau of Indian Affairs received about 2,000 comments regarding the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposed Cowlitz casino- resort, according to The Columbian newspaper. Thanks to all of you who shared your thoughts!

The deadline for public comment was extended from July 14 to Aug. 25 in response to broad-based concern from opposition groups, local municipalities and Rep. Brian Baird.

We requested the extension after learning that the tribe had replaced its March 2, 2004, fee-to-trust application with an amended application dated June 6. The fee-to-trust application is the Cowlitz Tribe’s formal request to the federal government to take 152 acres at the Interstate 5-La Center junction into trust. It is the foundation on which the DEIS is built— but in this case, the foundation was reconstructed mid-project.

Read CARS' comments:

July 13—focused on traffic and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) concerns

Aug. 25—focused on historical issues and the June 6, 2006, fee-to-trust application

CARS distills DOI technical reports

For the past several years, representatives of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe have been working to convince the Department of the Interior (DOI) that the tribe has been present in Clark County since “time immemorial.”

The casino developers are, however, not sticking to the facts. In their applications and testimony, they have minimized what constitutes the bulk of the Cowlitz Tribe’s history, which clearly shows that its presence has been centered in the Cowlitz River Valley, well to the north of Clark County. They also have misrepresented the tribe’s current situation in which fewer than 100 tribal members live in Clark County and most live farther north—in Pierce, Thurston, Cowlitz, King and Lewis counties.

CARS has combed the technical reports on which the tribe’s federal acknowledgment was based seeking references to the Cowlitz Tribe’s presence in Clark County and Cowlitz County, to the north. The documents make clear that the tribe has had no significant presence in southern Cowlitz or Clark County. We see no justification for the tribe’s claim to the current proposed site or the alternate site at Ridgefield.

Read CARS’ document, distilled from the Proposed Findings.