Cherokee oppose Catawba casino project in North Carolina
Chief Harris: The casino would help more members of the tribe escape poverty”
The South Carolina-based Catawba Indian Nation wants to build a US$340 million casino in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. However, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians opposes the competition. Most N.C. state senators say the federal government has no business approving the resort.
The Cherokees claim the proposed 16-acre site would encroach on their aboriginal territory. They also say a Senate bill authorizing the casino would bypass Indian Gaming Regulatory Act requirements. The requirements include extensive federal consultations with local, state, and tribal governments for economic, environmental, and infrastructure impact assessments, and the governor’s right to support or oppose a casino recommendation.
The fight over land claims, ambiguous federal settlements, and concerns about state sovereignty has languished for more than a quarter-century and has stalled in the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Republican U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Richard Burr and Thom Tillis of North Carolina filed legislation to let the Catawbas build a 220,000-square-foot gambling facility and two hotels featuring 750 rooms, a restaurant, entertainment outlets, and retail stores.
The project would create a projected 4,000 jobs in a high-unemployment area, with a regional economic impact of US$350 million annually, along with US$100 million in state revenues each year.
“The Catawba Nation has been treated unfairly by the federal government, and our legislation rights that wrong,” Graham said in a March 14 press release when S. 790 was filed. However, N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and 37 other state senators laid out their opposition to the bill in a letter to the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
With land disputes questioned and unsettled for year, Catawba Chief William Harris appeared before the U.S. House Interior, Environment Appropriations subcommittee on March 7 this year and provided written testimony about the tribe’s goal of economic self-sufficiency.
Harris said: “For the Catawba Nation, this goal is immeasurably complicated by the terms of our 1993 settlement act with the state that inhibits meaningful tribal economic development, including a gambling ban on tribal land. Census data shows 24.3% of all Catawba families — and 57.6% of female-headed Catawba households with children — live in poverty. The casino would help more members of the tribe escape poverty.”
The Eastern Cherokees on Monday issued a press release opposing the Catawba casino. The Cherokees operate the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort about 130 miles west of King’s Mountain, and the newer Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Casino and Hotel, about 190 miles west.
