With Indian Gaming Expansion Comes Rivalry Over Water Supplies

From their home along the edge of Barona Valley, Thomas and Susan Hillson have enjoyed their vista of undeveloped, arid hillsides dotted by boulders and sagebrush. And for their 15 years in the area, they say, they enjoyed a plentiful supply of water from their private well.

But as the Barona Band of Mission Indians, whose reservation sits in the valley 25 miles east of San Diego, began expanding their gaming hall into a casino resort with a 400-room hotel and 18-hole golf course, the Hillsons saw their well run dry.

Though the Indians contend their construction has not hurt local water supplies, the Hillsons and at least eight other families claim their wells have dried up since the project began over the summer.

“We’ve lived here since 1985 and never had a problem with our well until now” Susan Hillson said. “We never even had a storage tank for our water because we didn’t need it. . . . When we needed water we just pumped it out and it was there.”

“When the Indians started watering their golf course, the wells at the edge of the valley where the Indians are went dry,” she said. “It’s just not right.”

The water dispute is among a host of complaints that residents have raised against growing Indian casinos across the state. Anything from increased traffic to degradation of the environment and the rural atmosphere has raised outcries.

The issue of water, however, is being felt more acutely for local residents who find themselves taking unprecedented measures to save water, such as limiting their time in the shower, washing clothes at a coin-operated laundry and relying on rain to water their outdoor plants.

Some residents are trucking in water to their homes at a cost of $120 every five days.

Clifford LaChappa, chairman of the Barona tribe of 300 people, said the Indians have worked hard to cooperate with their neighbors and denied responsibility for the dry wells.

“Our own people depend on our ground water,” LaChappa said. “If our use of our water has no effect on us on the reservation, it certainly has no effect on others off the reservation.”

According to a report by an outside agency hired by the tribe, activities on the reservation are not substantially interfering with replenishment of ground water on or off tribal land.

The tribe, however, has not yet allowed San Diego County’s ground water geologist to test the reservation’s wells to confirm whether tribal water use is affecting the wells, according to the geologist, John Peterson.

The tribe, with its reservation deemed a sovereign nation under federal law, may largely do as it pleases on its property. That fact complicates any effort to file a lawsuit against the Barona Indians or any other tribe.

“It’s very, very seldom where you run into a situation where a wrong has been done and there’s no remedy. . . . But this is one of those situations,” said Bob Coffin, a lawyer who leads a group of residents worried about the tribe’s expansion project. “The people who are affected have no place to go.”

Disputes between Indians and their neighbors are likely to increase in line with growing construction of tribal gaming facilities, many on rural reservations throughout the state.

Proposition 1A, approved by California voters in March, allows tribes to negotiate compacts to operate slot machines, lotteries and card games. About 60 Indian tribes statewide, including nine of San Diego County’s 17 tribes, have approved gaming contracts. Six tribes in the county have submitted plans to build or expand casinos on their reservations.

Local officials feel their hands are tied when it comes to responding to their constituents’ complaints.

The county Board of Supervisors, which recently reviewed a 110-page report detailing the impacts expected with the expansion of Indian gaming, says any further action on behalf of constituents must come from the state or federal government.

“I am frustrated because it’s difficult to sit down at the table and discuss these issues when you have no leverage,” said County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who represents the area surrounding the Barona Reservation. “I don’t think anybody disagrees with the benefits of the casinos to the tribes. However, the flip side is, there are negative effects of these casinos on our area, and how they’ll be dealt with is uncertain.”

Jacob said the county supervisors want to talk more with state and federal officials about how best to preserve the environment while not infringing on the rights of the tribe.

Under the gaming compact, tribes only have to make a “good faith” effort to abide by environmental laws, but are not bound by them.

LaChappa said his tribe has made significant efforts to meet environmental guidelines. And some residents say the Indians aren’t to blame.

“Our original well went dry 10 years ago,” said Jill Ogilvie, whose family has lived here for 18 years. “That was way before the Indians were doing much of anything on the reservation.”

The Ogilvies, who can see the Barona casino from their backyard, had to drill down 800 feet to hit water. They then dropped the well to 1,100 feet as a precaution.

They spent more than $20,000 to dig the deeper well--a cost many of their neighbors with dry wells find unaffordable.

The Barona Indians, meanwhile, contend they cannot afford to waste their opportunity to build. LaChappa says the casino and resort project is one of the only ways his people can be self-sufficient and contribute to the local economy.

“Show me where on the Barona Indian Reservation I am supposed to find the gold, the oil, the uranium, the timber or other resources with which our people could sustain themselves,” LaChappa said. “Gaming and only gaming allows us to support ourselves, to be completely off welfare, and to be a major economic asset to the community.”

The tribe, he said, is trying to act responsibly as a government.

“We always take people one at a time, on their own merits, and hope others will treat us the same.”