Sands casino: Plan could draw traffic and water quality worries, stakeholders say

A $6 billion casino resort at the site of the Nassau Coliseum would likely impact water usage, increase vehicular traffic and generate more solid waste, among other environmental impacts, speakers told county legislators Monday night, kicking off a lengthy review of the bid by Las Vegas Sands.

Supporters said they believed Sands would successfully mitigate any concerns while opponents deemed the adverse effects on the Uniondale property would be reasons to deny the Nevada-based company the right to build.

Nassau's 19-member County Legislature held the "scoping session" inside the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola as part of a state-mandated environmental review process known as SEQRA. Lawmakers, as expected, did not take a vote on the proposal and launched straight into public comment.

"We are here to listen to the public. The subject here tonight is not ‘do we like the casino or do we not like the casino,’ ” said Presiding Officer Howard Kopel (R-Lawrence) at the start of the hearing.

Dozens of local residents, representatives from business organizations and trades unions as well as an attorney on behalf of Hofstra University participated in the hourslong hearing. While opponents sought to paint the 24/7 mega casino as a traffic magnet (it's estimated to attract 20,000 visitors per day), a broad coalition of supporters pointed to the thousands of temporary and permanent jobs and economic boon to the surrounding communities.

Uniondale resident Pearl Jacobs, among the most vocally opposed to the project, said the added traffic would only exacerbate the high rates of asthma in the surrounding communities.

"These serious environmental issues are unmitigable ... A mega casino project at this site would cause further environmental harm to disadvantaged communities and would check all the boxes for environmental racism," Jacobs said.

John Durso, president of the Long Island Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, which represents several construction and trade unions, said the environmental documents Nassau County and Sands have already produced is "one of the most robust scoping documents we've seen on Long Island."

"This is an opportunity for us to understand this 70-plus-acre site in a truly holistic way," Durso said. "It provides the community, our legislators, and the developers with the knowledge to create and deliver a project that doesn't just maintain the environmental status quo. It gives that information to actually improve the environmental integrity of the site for long-term success."

Legislators are court-ordered to conduct the multistep environmental review process in advance of voting on a lease agreement between the administration of Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman and the Sands corporation.

Sands has proposed an "integrated resort" on the county-owned property if it wins one of three highly competitive state gaming licenses available for the downstate region.

A Nassau judge sided with Hofstra, which sued Blakeman, the legislature and the county's planning commission last year for issuing Sands a lease for the property without considering the environmental impact of the development. Republicans hold a 12-7 majority on the county Legislature.

Christopher Murray, an attorney for Hofstra, said part of the environmental review should consider the nearby colleges and schools.

"These educational institutions, with over 30,000 students, are in the immediate vicinity of the proposed casino and the impact on these institutions, including the safety and well-being of the students should be examined," Murray said.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, based in Farmingdale, said she would like to know more about the project's aquifer use and water consumption, noting that a new well in the Town of Hempstead would be brought online specifically for the casino resort.

"We want to know if the Town of Hempstead water district will be operating that well? How much water will be used? And what happens if and when that well becomes contaminated?" Esposito said. "We look forward to rigorously participating in this environmental review."

State officials have pushed the timeline for awarding the licenses to the end of 2025 to allow bidders to gain such land-use approvals, which require SEQRA review.

The comments will be part of the project's draft environmental statement or DEIS. The Nassau Legislature will accept written comments until 5 p.m. on Sept. 19.

By Candice Ferrette

candice.ferrette@newsday.comcandiceferrette

Candice Ferrette covers Nassau County government and politics on Long Island. She has been a reporter at Newsday since 2011.