Casinos and the environment: big buildings, big impacts, no environmental regulations

The East Bay has become the focus for controversy over Indian casino gambling. In the last year, four casino proposals have been formally submitted here (one of these has been withdrawn), and two others have come to public knowledge.

Gambling may not be a smokestack industry, but it can have important implications for land-use patterns, traffic, endangered species, and environmental justice. Each casino would hold 2,500 - 3,000 slot machines, and would have revenues of around half a billion dollars per year. These would be big businesses, and the Sierra Club studies them with the same considerations that we bring to any major commercial land use. Most of the local casino proposals are for the shoreline, and we have special concerns for such a sensitive location. Further, the three active proposals (plus one of the not-yet-formal ones) are concentrated in a small area in and adjacent to Richmond. We have a special concern about the impacts of such concentrated development on the low-income communities here.

A second worry for the Club transcends site-specific environmental problems. Each casino proposal comes from the combination of a developer/operator and an Indian tribe. These proposals are not for property that an Indian tribe currently owns or holds as its homeland, but for ordinary parcels that a developer has picked for development.

The developer for both the North Richmond casino and the now-defunct idea for Oakland, is from Florida. At Point Molate, the development company was formed specifically for this project. Each of these developers has teamed up with a Las Vegas gambling concern to operate the casino for a cut. In addition, each developer had to line up an Indian tribe, which would apply to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to have the land legally declared the tribe's. Tribal ownership means that the tribe asserts legal sovereignty over the land, in particular exemption from any federal, state, or local environmental regulation unless the tribe specifically agrees to it. In each of the four proposals that have been formally brought in the Bay Area, the tribe has emphatically refused to apply the California Environmental Quality Act.

As long as the tribe and developer do not agree to be bound by federal, state, and local environmental laws and regulations, the Club cannot support a proposal. The local Sierra Club chapter or group still has the responsibility to weigh all the circumstances to decide whether to oppose such a project or to remain neutral.

One area of specific concern about casinos is traffic. Studies show that a casino with 3,000 slot machines will generate around 30,000 new car trips a day. The proposed concentration of casinos around Richmond would bring massive congestion on I-80, I-580, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, and local routes such as the Richmond Parkway. Initial analysis showed that the I-80/Dam Road interchange would have to be completely rebuilt to accommodate two-lane exit and entrance lanes on each side. As for Point Molate, the developer told the Richmond City Council that Western Drive, the only road to Point Molate from the south, would have to be expanded into a four-lane roadway and that consequently the entire toll area for the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge would have to be completely rebuilt.

Another concern is the impacts of urban casinos on a community. In The Luck Business Professor Robert Goodman found that because most gamblers at urban casinos are local, they do not bring money into the community, but simply divert spending from other existing businesses such as restaurants. Further, Goodman reports a 1995 study of Wisconsin's 17 tribal casinos that found compulsive gambling to cost Wisconsin $318 - $493 million a year through such effects as increased welfare, lost work productivity, and crime.

The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors released a report concluding that the proposed casino in San Pablo would have health impacts costing the county millions of dollars annually. Supervisor John Gioia said, "No matter what dollar amount is suggested [of mitigation fees], the negative effects from casinos would conflict with our Environmental Justice policy. We don't want to do anything to increase the environmental burden that low-income communities already face."

Two of the East Bay proposals raise such serious environmental concerns that the Club opposes them outright.

• The proposal for a casino in Oakland next to Arrowhead Marsh and the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline would have threatened endangered-species habitat. Community opposition was so strong that the proponents have withdrawn their proposal.

• The Chapter also opposes the proposal for a casino at Point Molate. This site is a former military base being transferred to the city of Richmond to be used for public benefit, and the Club believes that the best use of the site would be to incorporate it into the East Bay Regional Park District. This peninsula with fine views of the Bay should remain mostly open space with public access, and not be further built up or restricted.

The Chapter has not yet studied or taken a position on the other two formal proposals, one for San Pablo and one for North Richmond, but the traffic impacts and environmental-justice implications must be considered. In any case, unless the tribes agree to allow for the application of all environmental and land-use laws, the Chapter can not support these proposals.

In addition, Magna, the owner of the Golden Gate Fields race track in Albany, has expressed the desire to create "racinos", with casinos, shopping malls, and hotels, at all of Magna's tracks. The Chapter hopes for eventual elimination of Golden Gate Fields and incorporation of most of the land into the Eastshore State Park, with carefully scaled and planned development on the inland edge, close to the freeway; a casino would not be compatible with such plans.

The Mills Corporation, new owners of the largely vacant Hilltop Mall in Richmond, has publicized the idea for a new casino there, but has made no formal application. This application is probably on hold now because of the huge public outcry against urban casino gambling.

These East Bay casino proposals have provided key test cases for the development of the Club's statewide policy on casinos, and since Indian tribal gaming is a national issue, the Bay Chapter and Sierra Club California plan to work with the Club's national policy-making structure on these issues.

Norman La Force, Sierra Club California coordinator on Indian gaming development, and chair, East Bay Public Lands Committee