Dear Nassau County Legislators:
I am opposed to the proposed casino. The Draft Environmental Impact Study or DEIS clearly demonstrates that the negative environmental, societal, economic and financial impacts are impossible to mitigate. The destructive drain on our environment, our local economy, and our social fabric is too great a cost for our community to bear.
1) The casino will average 10 million annual visitors - over. 27,000 per day. Along with the estimated 5,000 employees and the lack of mass transportation, this enormous increase in traffic volume will negatively impact residents throughout Nassau County. The number of casino visitors will peak during evening hours and weekends and most of them will arrive by car and by bus. The resulting traffic and air pollution levels cannot be mitigated.
LVS is proposing to expand the Meadowbrook Parkway and other surrounding roads is because the 10 million visitors they expect per year will overwhelm our already inadequate traffic infrastructure. After years of inconvenience during road construction, traffic will remain just as bad if not worse. Our congested roads are simply not designed to handle an additional 20,000+ vehicles per day.
2) Imposing more traffic induced pollution on communities with high asthma rates would be a social injustice. Several disadvantaged communities surrounding the Nassau Hub have been designated by the NYS DEC as already overburdened from the impacts of air pollution and climate change.
3) Studies have shown an increase in crime in counties that host casinos. In one study, 8.6% of property crime and 12.6% of violent crime in counties with casinos was due to the presence of the casino. This increase in crime rate translates into substantial increases in financial costs for Nassau County. Using the same method used in the source analysis and accounting for inflation and Nassau County’s adult population, county costs—and our taxes—could potentially need to increase by $165 million to cover the criminal costs generated by a casino..
4) Our sole source aquifer is contaminated, and our supply of safe drinking water is limited. We do not have 760,000+ gallons per day for a massive casino. In addition, we cannot risk spreading plumes of contaminants in our aquifer through excessive pumping. Our aquifers are already under significant stress from drought, over-pumping, saltwater intrusion, and pollution. The study is inadequate as it lacks any analysis or modeling of groundwater impacts from the new proposed well such as impacts to adjacent wells, streams and waterways.
5) Even with minimal ‘mitigation.’ LVS expects to dump 120,000 tons of CO2 into our air each year, after ‘mitigating’ from 137,000 tons. At this enormous scale, it would take more than 5 million new trees to remove the dangerous pollutant.
6) The DEIS claims that off-site renewable energy sources will be used. However, Long Island has a limited amount of renewable energy resources and Nassau County is already at full capacity. If the casino was to draw from the available pool of renewable energy, current customers would be forced to revert to fossil fuel for their electricity needs.
7) The socioeconomic analysis in the DEIS is lacking and biased as it did not analyze:
the impact on our locally owned restaurants and businesses from the diversion of $2 billion into gambling losses and the resultant losses in local employment;
the lost sales tax revenue from this diversion of dollars into gambling losses and the impact on the Roosevelt Field shopping district from increased traffic;
the potential economic loss to homeowners near the casino from lower home values;
the economic losses to Hofstra University and other local businesses.
the increased social costs to our County, Town of Hempstead and local villages due to increase in traffic, crime and gambling addiction;
the loss of potential economic activity from companies who will not want expand in Nassau County due to the increase in traffic and other casino impacts; and
the potential harm to our local tourism industry from the increase in traffic that will discourage visits to current destinations like the Hamptons/North Fork.
If the County was to perform a comprehensive economic analysis, it would be clear that the casino’s many harmful impacts heavily outweigh any potential benefits.
8) We have a growing gambling addiction problem in our country due to existing casinos, lotteries and the explosion of online betting. Many are comparing this problem to the opioid crisis where for years the problem was ignored by our elected officials and only addressed after hundreds of thousands of lives were lost.
Sands make the case that because we have an explosion of online gambling, no one should object to a massive casino. Common sense tells you that placing a massive casino in the heart of our community will only serve to make our gambling addiction crisis even worse.
Sands has provided no evidence that any of its mitigation practices are effective, they are just words on paper with no supporting studies to demonstrate that any of Sands’ methods have ever been successful. Problem gamblers make up a large portion of the gambling losses, one recent study suggested up to 33%. It is estimated that for every job created at a casino, three people will experience gambling addiction. You cannot allow a massive casino to be built to raise taxes by exploiting County residents with gambling addictions and by making even more County residents addicted.
9) Placing a massive casino in the heart of a congested suburb, next to two colleges and a Catholic high school will inevitably lead to more lives lost to drunk and impaired driving. It could be deemed gross negligence by the courts and could open the County and to its Legislators personally to endless litigation each and every time a life is lost in a traffic accident caused by one of the 10 million annual casino visitors.
10) The casino project as proposed will put the survival of adjacent last remains of the historic Hempstead Plains in grave risk - this will be a tremendous loss to our community and our history. The Plains are a unique ecosystem, vital to many species of birds, plants and animals.
11) The emergencies from this massive complex and its 27,000+ daily visitors will overwhelm our all-volunteer fire departments that are already challenged with meeting current community needs. A comprehensive assessment of the requirements and costs for police, fire, ambulance and health services must to be conducted
12) NYU Langone plans to build a $3 billion hospital and healthcare center on Nassau Community College land. Approving a massive casino that will consume so many resources (water, electricity, etc.) and impose so much traffic in the heart of our County, will no doubt put this proposal in serious jeopardy of ever getting approved. This is a project that will save thousands of Nassau County lives, not destroy thousands of lives like the proposed casino will do.
Given the lack of transparency and openness by the County Legislature to date and recent holidays, we ask you to extend the period for comments on the DEIS for an additional two weeks.
I urge you to protect our County’s future and your legacy by voting to stop this ill-conceived project, and to take a leadership role in bringing development to the Nassau Hub that you and county residents can truly be proud of.
Sincerely, [YOUR NAME AND TOWN]
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