The Prairie Island Indian Community's development of recently acquired acreage in Washington County could be years away and most likely will include housing or businesses other than a casino, the tribal president said Monday.
Shelley Buck acknowledged persistent public speculation that the tribe intends to build a casino in West Lakeland Township, just north of Afton. But she said the tribe purchased the 112-acre sod farm to replace land lost to a nuclear plant and Mississippi River flooding at its Goodhue County reservation.
"We want a safe place for our community, out of the shadow of the nuclear power and storage, and a place with room to grow and diversify, both housing and economically," Buck said.
"It has nothing to do with a casino. It has everything to do with safe and secure land for our people and the future of our tribe. Everyone in our country deserves that right."
Fewer than 200 members of the Prairie Island tribe live on the reservation, about 30 miles southeast of the Twin Cities, squeezed between Xcel Energy's nuclear power plant and submerged land lost when Lock and Dam No. 3 was built in 1938, Buck said. A 2003 agreement with Xcel allowed the tribe to buy up to 1,500 acres within 50 miles of Prairie Island as compensation.
State land records show the tribe paid more than $4.4 million to buy the sod farm, at $39,350 an acre, northeast of where busy Manning Avenue intersects with Interstate 94.
The transaction, announced in March, was followed in June by an application to place the West Lakeland Township land in federal trust — protecting it from sale and freeing it from county taxation.
Gary Kriesel, the Washington County commissioner whose district includes the tribal property, said Monday he's heard concern over a possible casino but that it was "way too premature to engage in that." After meeting with tribal leaders, he said, "There's nothing on a fast track that I sensed."
