Setting precedent, California tribe nears agreement to build casino on new land

Michelle DeArmond

Thursday, Sept. 28, 2000 | 5:29 a.m.

TORRES-MARTINEZ INDIAN RESERVATION, Calif. - For nearly a century, the murky, foul-smelling Salton Sea has blanketed about half of this remote reservation, rendering some 11,800 acres unusable for the tribe's hundreds of members.

The federal government awarded the land with the mistaken, turn-of-the-century assumption that the water would eventually recede. Despite presidential orders, acts of Congress and legal rulings, the tribe never gained the use of the land or was compensated for it.

After decades of struggle the tide could be turning for the impoverished Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians. Legislation winding its way through Congress would allow Torres-Martinez to extend its borders and claim choice real estate to build a casino.

The measure, which cleared the House last week, would grant the tribe new land for a casino, raising concerns that a precedent could be set allowing other tribes to easily snatch up choice land and expand gambling nationwide.

"It not only will set a precedent, but it has already started a precedent. It clearly demonstrates that we have federal law that has run amok," said Cheryl Schmit, co-director of Stand Up for California, an activist group that fought the legalization of Indian gambling in California.

The bill would allow the tribe to acquire a total of 11,800 acres - including 640 acres for a casino 12 miles north of the existing reservation - and provide $14 million for the purchase.

The bill resolves federal lawsuits brought in the 1980s and 1990s by the U.S. government and the tribe against the water districts responsible for flooding the reservation, creating California's largest lake. Although a tourist draw, the lake suffers periodic fish and bird kills.

The legislation's sponsor, Rep. Mary Bono, says that while she believes Schmit and others are justified in worrying about an expansion of gambling, those fears shouldn't apply here.

"It's a land exchange for the land that sits beneath the Salton Sea. It gives them no right that they don't currently have now," said Bono, a Republican.

John Tahsuda, general counsel for the National Indian Gaming Association, said the tribe's acquisition is unlikely to set a precedent.

"The equities were so far out of whack on the tribe's side that a lot of people will see it as a necessary right to a wrong," he said.

The 640 acres that would be used for the tribe's casino sit at Interstate 10 near Indio, which is about 130 miles east of Los Angeles. The town is also home to the Cabazon Band of Mission Indian's thriving Fantasy Springs casino - a potential source of conflict.

The booming tourist destination of Palm Springs sits nearby, where the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians has a casino and another one planned.

The site is considered more favorable for a casino than the existing isolated Torres-Martinez reservation, where only a fraction of the more than 600 tribal members live. Modular homes and scrub brush dot the dusty, barren landscape, some homes have no electricity or running water and remote dirt roads make getting to work difficult.

The land deal has put Torres-Martinez at odds with the Cabazon, who worked to defeat a similar bill in 1996 and agreed not to oppose the current measure only after it was amended to guarantee a two-mile buffer zone around the Torres-Martinez's casino land.

Members of the small, wealthy Cabazon tribe admitted they were worried about competition.

"What we don't want is for them to be able to be in this position, which allows them to jump over all the cities and the other reservations in order to get into a better location," Greg Cervantes, Cabazon's director of public affairs, said before the amendment was approved. "That has not been allowed for other tribes in the United States."

Torres-Martinez leaders have decried Cabazon's opposition. Tribal Chairwoman Mary Belardo said the Cabazon have been led astray by non-Indians who fill key positions in the tribe.

The bill recently earned the backing of California's senior senator, Democrat Dianne Feinstein. Other tribes also have come to Torres-Martinez's support.

"This is about justice for the Torres-Martinez people who lost almost half of their reservation to other interests and then to farmers and decades going by and that not being addressed," said Mary Ann Martin Andreas, chairwoman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians.