PORT ANGELES — The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe’s long-term bid to build a small casino west of town has been set back by the U.S. Interior Department.
The government rejected as incomplete the tribe’s “placeholder” application on 16 acres it owns on U.S. Highway 101 at Dry Creek Road.
Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles said Interior ruled the application was incomplete because it did not include environmental assessments of the site, the former location of Adventures Through Kayaking.
The Lower Elwha had filed the placeholder to preserve its options against an April 2006 deadline set by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who as chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee had threatened to ban off-reservation casinos.
The ban never materialized.
