Casino Stalker

Sault Tribe awaits movement on off-reservation gaming projects

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Artist's rendering of the proposed Kewadin Lansing Casino in Lansing, Michigan. Image from Sault Tribe

The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians hasn't seen much federal movement on its two off-reservation gaming proposals.

The tribe filed land-into-trust applications for sites in Lansing and in Huron Township in June 2014. Yet there's been no word of an environmental impact statement or other actions from the Bureau of Indian Affairs that would indicate concrete progress.

The same can't be said for similar projects in the BIA's Midwest Region. The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, for example, finally has a draft environmental impact statement for a proposed casino although it did take nearly three years for that to happen.

The Sault Tribe argues that the BIA must approve both applications because the properties were acquired in connection with the Michigan Indian Land Claims Settlement Act. Other tribes dispute that claim and oppose off-reservation casinos.

"It is more than ironic that both the Sault Tribe and its principal investor in off-reservation casino schemes have now both gone bankrupt," James Nye, a spokesperson for the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe told The Detroit Free Press. The Sault Tribe used to own the Greektown Casino, a commercial facility, before it went bankrupt and one of its former gaming partners just declared bankruptcy.

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