Wampa World Water – Can Taunton fill the need?

Unlike other proposed casino complexes in Massachusetts, the recently unveiled plans for Taunton present a significantly different environmental impact profile.  Mashpee Wampanoag council chair Cedric "Pay no Taxes" Cromwell promises a massive indoor and outdoor water park along side of his planned casino resort complex with three hotels (nearly 1,000 rooms) multiple  restaurants, bars, a “New Hampshire style” liquor store and shopping mall.    

The Wampanoag claim they have an environmental impact study underway; however, residents are being asked to vote on the casino issue and the town is negotiating a compact before that study will be made available and the potential cost burdens this Indian reservation casino resort complex will have on the area's infrastructure and environment.  The impact of this resort casino, hotels, restaurants and water park on local water use and treatment alone will be huge for Bristol County.

According to the latest state government report, Southeastern Massachusetts is under “severe drought” conditions.  Bristol County residents have been under water use restrictions each summer for several years now.   How will Cathal O’Brian and Taunton Water address this new demand?   What will the burden be on infrastructure for treating the casino’s waste water?  How will this new draw impact neighboring communities who share our water sources needs?  

While any potential agreement between the City of Taunton and the Mashpee Wampanoag must fully account for water use and treatment costs, other factors also need to be included: the neighboring communities’ costs, risks to local firefighting capacity, environmental impacts and additional water restriction burdens on the people in the region should be equally addressed.

According to industry standards, hotels typically use between 36,000 and 73,000 gallons of water per room/year.  So, Cedric’s three hotels alone could draw down 66 million gallons of Taunton-area water.   Hotel & Leisure Advisors reports that a typical indoor only (Cedric promises and indoor and outdoor water park) park requires 50 million gallons to fill, then uses between 125,000 and 160,000 gallons per day (that’s 46 to 58 million gallons per year).   Using standard calculations for casino, restaurant, bar and shopping space water usage the proposed Wampanoag gaming complex, bars and restaurants would conservatively use another 200,000 gallons of water per day or 74 million gallons per year.

The combined annual water draw down from the area’s water supplies and corresponding waste water output from the Taunton Wampanoag casino resort complex would be in excess of 250 million gallons per year.   To put that into context, the average single family household of four uses 60, 000 gallons per year – thus the casino will have the water impact of adding another 4,000 single family homes.

The City of Taunton, Massachusetts draws its drinking water from six reservoirs: Assowampsett; Elders; Long; Poksha; Great Quittacas; and Little Quittacas.  Taunton shares this water with Lakeville, Middleborough, Freetown and Rochester.  The Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs report on Sustainable Water Initiatives, published in February 2012, details the water challenges for the state and for Taunton.  This report, coupled with the current "severe drought" status of the region, spells out real challenges for Bristol County with the proposed Indian casino resort complex.

To ensure regional, not just Taunton residents, aren’t unfairly penalized for the infrastructure costs and new water demands that will stretch the region’s already limited capacity the City should review and revise their commercial water rate schedule for this project, as even a high commercial rate of $10 per 1,000 gallons will not likely cover the resulting costs.  Other commercial rate payers also pay state and local taxes which are used to support area infrastructure – the Indian reservation casino complex will pay no such taxes and their utility rates should reflect that disparity.

Finally, what assurances will Taunton have that the Wampanoag casino will be able to pay increasing water and other utility costs when other established Indian casinos in our region are now in massive debt and tribe members are seeking assistance to pay their utility bills?  Does anyone really think an Indian casino in Massachusetts will be any different.

Casino impact on Taunton neighbors: Berkley, Dighton, Raynham, Lakeville, Middleboro and Norton

The Berkley, MA town selectmen are asking Taunton Mayor Tom Hoye to include them in impact studies and negotiations with the Mashpee Wampanoag and their plans to build a mega-casino Indian reservation resort complex in East Taunton.  Berkley recognizes that Taunton will not be the only impacted community.  Are the other neighboring communities of Dighton, Raynham, Lakeville, Middleboro and Norton also preparing?

Well documented independent research from respected, non-casinofunded sources clearly shows neighboring communities also suffer from increase crime, traffic and others costs with casino gaming developments.  Casino promoters claim "mixed" data proves the casinos are not the cause, but reductions in murder rates while clearly casino-linked crimes like rape, assaults, car thefts, robberies and DUIs increased are easily measured.    Studies of casinos in suburban areas similarly show a corresponding loss in property values based on residential proximity to a casino.  The casino promoters only talk about studies done on remote location casinos where property values started at zero.  These property value losses can be measured miles beyond the borders of the towns in which the casinos are located.

Take the case of the small community of Ledyard, Connecticut.  Their downtown center is located about five miles from the Foxwoods Indian Casino resort complex.  Ledyard conducted a study of the impact andcosts they bear as a neighbor to the destination resort casino – similar to the one proposed for Taunton by the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe – and found the following results:

• 24 hour a day traffic increases resulting in increased traffic control and road maintenance
• Increased motor vehicle accidents resulting in the need for more police enforcement and emergency response
• Increased drunk driving (DUI) incidents – which they note, now occur at the highest frequency rate of any location in the state – with corresponding police and emergency medical service response costs

Ledyard could directly quantify the costs of these new burdens by comparing their costs and incidence rates in previous years.  In addition to what the town characterizes as serious negative impacts on their quality of life of residents, they could attribute more than $2.2 million in direct additional costs to the town annually.  The broke them down as follows:

Expense area	Cost to town
Crime	$336,084
Social Services/ Assistance	$5,098
Legal expenses (lawsuit with tribe over attempted annexation of town land)	$370,000
Local roads and bridges	$1,200,000
Zoning enforcement	$49,864
Public safety & traffic	$260,930
Total 2000-2001 costs incurred:	$2,221,976

Ledyard further noted annual erosion in their property tax base concurrent with the casino development and annexation of previously taxed lands for the purposes of expanding the Pequot Indian reservation.

The town acknowledges that the casino has brought new jobs to the region, but notes that the majority created were in the low $15,000 to $25,000 per year range. They noted that the low paying jobs and increase problem gambling associated with the casino proximity were linked to a significant rise in demand for local social services and general assistance programs.

In addition to moving from one of the lowest DUI rates to the highest in the state, Ledyard experienced a 300 percent increase in local crime rates.  This increase happened during the same time when crime rates outside of the casino region in Connecticut declined by 11 percent.

Ledyard also saw a 200 percent increase in traffic on local roads.  They note that casino customers are using local roads at significantly higher rates than the state highways which had been touted in initial impact plans as bearing the majority of the traffic burdens.  They further noted that the increased cars and trucks were not contributing to a corresponding increase in visits to Ledyard businesses, but was simply through traffic to the casino complex.

And, Ledyard noted that because Foxwoods was an Indian casino, that the construction process circumvented all local zoning, public hearing requirements and environmental regulations for which the town then incurred significant legal costs to protect their citizen’s interest throughout the development, building, ongoing operation and expansion process.

Taunton will not be the only place that needs to negotiate with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to make sure their costs don’t outweigh the promised benefits of bringing a free from local jurisdiction and tax exempt Indian reservation casino resort complex to their community.  Will the impacted citizens and businesses in Dighton, Raynham, Lakeville, Middleboro and Norton have any say or control?