Madera casino a tad closer with decision

By MICHAEL DOYLE
BEE WASHINGTON BUREAU

last updated: July 03, 2008 11:22:30 PM

WASHINGTON -- The Bureau of Indian Affairs has quietly dropped plans to study another potential location for a Madera County casino, in a reversal that saves valuable time for the North Fork Rancheria project.

BIA officials now say they need not examine the casino potential of the so-called Old Mill site near the mountain town of North Fork. Instead, government and tribal officials will continue focusing on building the $250 million gambling facility off Highway 99, near Madera.

The recent decision by Amy Dutschke, the BIA's acting regional director, follows furious backstage scrambling by opponents and proponents of the North Fork Rancheria casino. It comes six weeks after a top Interior Department administrator in Washington, as one of his last official acts, ordered the study of the Old Mill site.

The new decision means officials won't have to spend another year evaluating the economic and environmental consequences of building the casino on the 135-acre Old Mill site. This clears the way for completion of a long-delayed draft environmental impact statement centering on the Highway 99 site. Final Interior Department decisions could come by year's end.

"We're very excited about it," Elaine Fink, head of the tribal council of the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians of California, said Tuesday. "We knew the Old Mill site wasn't an option ... it's just not feasible."

Many of the 1,700 members of the North Fork Rancheria consider the proposed casino to be the foundation of their economic well-being. The casino would include about 2,500 slot machines, 70 tables games, restaurants and a hotel. Planners are targeting a 305-acre site immediately north of Madera, at Avenue 17.

Because the 305 acres near Highway 99 are not North Fork land, the tribe needs Interior Department approval to take the property into trust.

For reasons that Fink said she still does not fully understand, then-Assistant Secretary of the Interior Carl Artman on May 12 told his Sacramento BIA office to add the Old Mill site to the draft environmental impact statement.

The order stunned tribal and regional officials, who had ruled out the site. Contrary to Artman's stated belief, the property is not within the bounds of the North Fork Rancheria. It also may be tainted by its lumber legacy, leaving the government liable for environmental cleanup.

Nonetheless, regional BIA officials indicated they would comply with his orders. On May 23, Artman's last day in office before resigning, he acknowledged that "valid concerns" had been raised and left a final decision up to his Sacramento field office.

On June 29, the Sacramento office told consultants preparing the draft environmental impact statement that the Old Mill site could be safely ignored.

Bee Washington Bureau reporter Michael Doyle can be reached at mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com or 202-383-0006.

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