Barbour Asks EPA to Stop Casino | Jackson Free Press | Jackson, MS

Barbour Asks EPA to Stop Casino

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Gov. Haley Barbour will give his annual State of the State address tonight.

Read Barbour's letter to the EPA

Gov. Haley Barbour is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to stop the construction of The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians' casino in Jones County.

In an Aug. 25 letter to EPA Regional Administrator Stan Meiburg, Barbour asks the agency to stop the casino due to "the detrimental impact it will have on the environment and the public health and safety of our citizens."

Barbour claims that plans for the casino's wastewater treatment plant has several deficiencies in its current design that "jeopardizes the safety of the water supply in the area where both tribal leaders and Mississippi citizens work."

Barbour announced in an July 25 letter to Attorney General Jim Hood that he would hire outside legal council to stop the MBCI from building the 27,000-square-foot casino on their land, after the attorney general previously stated that there are no legal grounds for the state to take action against the casino.

The tribe stated in a recent press release, published in the Neshoba Democrat, that "Under the compact, the tribe has a federally protected right to develop gaming facilities on property held in trust."

Previous Comments

ID
159539
Comment

Why are they even building another casino when they can't afford to keep both of the ones they have in Philadelphia, open? They shut down the Golden Moon, then leased it out to another company that only opens it for gaming on the weekends. So what makes them think another casino owned by them, in Jones County of all places, will do good?

Author
LambdaRisen
Date
2010-08-26T11:06:40-06:00

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