CAYUGA - U.S. Senator Charles Schumer has called on the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to provide a more balanced and thorough analysis of the potential negative impacts of the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York’s land-into-trust application in Cayuga and Seneca counties.  Schumer said that the current assessment, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), “lacks key information related to economic and environmental consequences, as well as regulatory framework guiding future development on trust land.”

Schumer said it does not address the collateral economic or traffic consequences for local businesses that would have to compete with tax-free businesses on neighboring trust land, nor does it take into consideration the unequal playing field that can result from the fact that trust land would be exempt from most local zoning strictures.

The senator called for the BIA to “fill the gaps in the DEIS to ensure that all parties are fully knowledgeable of all the consequences of taking land into trust.”

Following a Cayuga Indian Nation request that 129 acres of land be put into a tax-exempt federal trust, the Bureau of Indian Affairs issued a DEIS that concluded there would be little or no negative impact, environmental or otherwise, from putting the land into trust.

The DOI’s Final Environmental Impact Study is the next step, although Schumer and many communities feel the federal agency has not done enough to address the concerns and answer the questions of residents in Cayuga and Seneca Counties.