The Bureau of Indian Affairs has completed the final draft of the environmental impact statement for the Tejon Indian Tribe of California’s application to put 306 acres into trust in Mettler, near Bakersfield.
The tribe proposes a $600 million Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Kern County, a project that has widespread support among area residents.
Now that the EIS has been completed there will be a 30-day period before the BIA decides to go forward or not—until late November.
The tribe first applied to the BIA five years ago. The report lists several options the federal government could choose for the tribe. Including the tribe’s preferred option, of a 400-room hotel and casino, RV park and entertainment center.
Another option is the same casino resort on 118 acres about one mile west of Mettler. With this option the tribe wouldn’t be able to put as much residential housing and tribal offices on the land. The third option is a smaller version of the casino resort on the Mettler site; with a fourth being an organic farm.
One group that strongly opposes the casino is the gaming watchdog group Stand Up California, which in its comments cited the Covid-19 pandemic: “The economic benefit of the casino may not be realized because ongoing public health concerns are likely to result in reduced attendance.” It added, “Even if the pandemic were to end in the next six months, the public health issues this pandemic has brought to the fore are not going to go away.”
The BIA, which responded to substantive negative comments, noted that construction wouldn’t start before 2022, adding: “It should also be noted that the socioeconomic benefit of the project alternatives, including job creation, wage income earned by local employees, and state and local tax revenues, may be more impactful than originally estimated in the Draft EIS due to the economic situation.”
