Runaway Environmentalism Seeks Oxford Casino Closure

BDN hysteria.

Justice Michaela Murphy, alumna of Cal Berkeley and donor to Maine Democrats.

We're in the very best of hands.

Better to have all those people unemployed I guess.

Oxford Casino was on tap to make a large expenditure with our firm in August... Now it's on hold.

It's called trickle down economics.

If I break environmental law, the DEP will prevent me from proceeding.
Why didn't they stop the casino after it completed the phase 1permit ?

Oh like the casino is going to close over some arcane proceedural interpretation. It's good to remember that a judge is just some lawyer who knew some politician.

BDN comments are interesting. They're strongly against the casino but not in an anti casino or gambling way . . more like an Occupy Oxford or anticapitalist way. It sounds like, after cigarettes, there just isn't enough EBT left to tarry awhile at the poker machines.

More unbelievable nonsense form the environazis . In a place that is dying for jobs, revenue and an engine to restart the local economy the 18 member's of the river alliance want to stop a good thing dead in it's tracks......I was talking with a friend of mine who is employed there and she says it's a great place to work with decent pay and benefits, she is a dyed in the wool liberal ,I think I'll check out what she thinks on this latest development.

I'm part owner of a company that is building and installing a wastewater treatment system there, required by DEP, to protect groundwater in the neighborhood. This system adds more than one half million dollars to the cost of doing business there.

And that's just one aspect of the permit approval process.

I want environmentalists to explain to me how damaging the casino is to the environment, and how evil capitalists are. And how the Casino abused the approval process.

This has nothing to do with the environment. These folks want the casino closed and are using evironmental law as an avenue. If this does not work, they will try something else.

There was some enviromentalist on WGAN news this morning talking about the casino and said "LePage thinks he's an emperor, not a governor", and accussed LePage of refusing to enforce a law he didn't like.

Yet they applaud Obama for doing what they accuse LePage of doing, unreal

From: DePoy-Warren, Samantha
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 4:20 PM
Subject: DEP Statement on Oxford Casino Case

Below is a statement issued on behalf of the Department in response to the recent ruling by the Kennebec County Superior Court regarding the DEP’s issuance of the permit for Phase I of the Oxford Casino development. For your background, DEP issued the Site Location of Development Act and Natural Resource Protection Act permits (signed by a non-appointed Division Director) in March of 2011. The project was also granted permits by the Oxford Planning Board and the federal Army Corps.

In April, the DEP’s permits were appealed by Mr. Hinchman et. al to the Board of Environmental Protection, which in June voted unanimously to uphold the department’s licensing decision and deny the appeal, with several conditions that were incorporated into a modified order, again unanimously approved by that board in July. (Those modification included requiring the licensee to submit additional documentation of financial capacity prior to any additional work at the site other than work related to testing for water supply and complete testing for the water supply wells and submit the results to the Department staff for review and approval prior to September 14, 2011, at which point additional work on the site could -and did- resume.) Not satisfied with the Department’s decision or the Board’s concurrence of it, Mr. Hinchman then appealed the Board’s decision to Superior Court, which brings us to the recent ruling.

So as to not compromise any forthcoming department decisions on this development or additional appeals likely from Mr. Hinchman, the DEP will not be commenting further on this matter at this time and instead be getting to work per the court’s order.

Best,

Samantha DePoy-Warren

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-Maine Department of Environmental Protection Statement on Oxford Casino Court Decision-

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is aware of the ruling made last week by the Kennebec County Superior Court that returns to us for further review a permitting decision made by our Department in March of 2011 that allowed for the Phase I development of the Oxford Resort Casino. While we do not agree with the findings and stand behind our staff’s thorough and thoughtful initial review, per the court’s order and our own commitment to the balanced protections of our environment, the Department will act in accordance with the remand order and reopen the review process so that other available evidence that could be relevant can be additionally considered.

In the meantime, the applicant pursued development in good faith and in accordance with the permit issued by the Department and upheld unanimously by the State’s Board of Environmental Protection. No allegation by the appellant or findings by the court since have shown this development has caused any environmental degradation, nor did the appellant seek a stay of the construction of the project. As a result, the Department has no intention to pursue any closing of the casino, nor would past precedent indicate it would be appropriate to do so.

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Samantha DePoy-Warren
Spokesperson/Director of Communications & Education
Maine Department of Environmental Protection
(207) 287-5842 (office) / (207) 592-0427 (cell)
samantha.depoy-warren@maine.gov