Traffic in Fairfield County Could Worsen
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2002–The Senate’s overwhelming rejection of an amendment offered by Connecticut’s two Democratic senators may have removed the last major obstacle in the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe’s 20-year quest to receive federal recognition and move ahead with its plans for a casino in Bridgeport.
The Senate defeated the amendment sponsored by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D – Conn.) and supported by Sen. Joe Lieberman (D – Conn.), 85-15, Monday night. Its rejection could clear the way for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to hear the tribe’s petition for formal recognition.
“The defeat of the Dodd amendment is a great relief to the Golden Hill tribe,” the leader of the tribe, Chief Quiet Hawk, told The New York Times immediately after the vote. “It would have been a delay unneeded and unfounded.”
Once recognized by the federal government, the Paugussett tribe could go forward with its plans for a casino that many say would worsen the severe traffic congestion on I-95 in Fairfield County.
“It would turn I-95 into a parking lot,” Rep. Chris Shays (R-4th) said recently of the proposed casino. “I can’t imagine [I-95] would not have to be widened.”
A July 2001 report by the South Western Regional Planning Agency titled “Casino Traffic Impact Study” backs up Shays’ assessment. “Bumper-to-bumper conditions on a summer Friday would increase from 6 hours today to 14 hours a day,” the report said, adding that the average speed on northbound I-95 would lessen from 46 miles an hour to 34 based on what it describes as “conservative estimates” of increased traffic.
Not so, a spokesman for the tribe said. “Bridgeport is an ideal site because of the access,” the spokesman said in a phone interview Tuesday. “People can take the Port Jefferson ferry from New York, and there is nearby Sikorsky Airport that will also alleviate traffic.” He also indicated that much of the traffic to the Bridgeport casino already would have been going to the Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun casinos and would now have a shorter drive to a casino.
Dodd said in a press release that he was disappointed the Senate rejected his amendment to the Interior appropriations bill. The amendment would have imposed a moratorium on Bureau of Indian Affairs recognition of Indian tribes until major bureau reforms are instituted. But he added that he and Lieberman would continue to push for reforms.
“As we go forward, we will continue to pursue our goal of reforming the system through other avenues,” Lieberman said in the same press release. “[We also will] continue showing our colleagues how these recognition decisions are having such an intense impact in Connecticut.”
Shays said in a phone interview Tuesday that he had empathy for what the Connecticut senators were trying to accomplish. “The system is broken and it needs to be fixed.”
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is scheduled to hear the Paugussetts’ application for federal recognition on Jan. 18.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
