Star Tribune
Feds give Prairie Island tribe permission for ’emergency casino’ outside Rochester
Six years after purchasing 1,200 acres of land just north of Rochester, the Prairie Island Indian Community has secured federal approval to recognize a portion of the land as sovereign tribal territory.
The decision, announced earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, puts 400 acres of the Elk Run property the tribe owns into a federal trust, granting the tribe the tax benefits and other protections afforded to tribal lands. It also raises the possibility of the site being used for a casino.
While the tribe said it has no immediate plans to develop the land, its application noted the potential need to build an “emergency gaming facility” on the site in the event a disaster impacts operations at Treasure Island, the casino and resort it owns near Red Wing. The interim casino would be built inside a 22,000-square-foot bar on the property that is now vacant.
The approval from the Bureau of Indian Affairs also opened the possibility for a permanent casino to be built on the site after a six-year forbearance period “should the Tribe determine additional Tribal economic income and employment opportunities are needed.”
For years, the tribe has raised concerns about catastrophic flooding impacting the reservation, including the casino, the tribe’s primary source of revenue. The tribe has also expressed worry about the presence of a nuclear generating plant, one of the oldest in the country, located about 700 yards away from the casino.
“[T]he funds generated by the emergency interim gaming facility will allow the Tribe to continue its critical governmental functions in the event of a closure of its main casino as a result of a natural or nuclear disaster,” reads the decision from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. “The Elk Run Site will become the Tribe’s lifeline in such an event and will serve as a means of recovery for the Tribe should such an event occur.”
As the tribe prepares its contingency options for keeping its gaming operations afloat, it is also awaiting approval for a second application covering the remaining 800 acres it owns near Pine Island.
Those plans center on housing for tribal members, which the tribe has said was its primary reason for purchasing the site in 2019 for $15.5 million. The tribe has about 1,100 enrolled members, about 150 of whom are on a waiting list for housing on the reservation.
Health insurer UCare has reached an agreement with HealthPartners clinics, which will allow thousands of patients to continue seeing the same doctors without switching health plans next year.
The two companies announced the agreement Friday evening. The terms are effective immediately.
“As mission-driven organizations, UCare and HealthPartners share a commitment to improving health outcomes for our community, and the organizations’ ongoing collaboration reflects that shared goal,” a joint statement said.
The clinics had been out of network for several years, but UCare had waived rules that would have blocked patients from making appointments. UCare said it would start enforcing the network rules Jan. 1.
Star Tribune
Man charged in Brooklyn Park homicide had connection to 2022 Mall of America fatal shooting
A 19-year-old Coon Rapids man, who played a role in a 2022 fatal shooting at the Mall of America, is facing murder charges in connection with an apparent targeted shooting earlier this month in Brooklyn Park.
Citing witnesses, surveillance footage and cell phone data, prosecutors say that Marquan D. Tucker waited in a parking lot Dec. 7 before opening fire on two people when they exited a business in the 8000 block of Brooklyn Boulevard.
The two victims returned fire, though one was wounded and the other, Ramone R. Blue, 23, of Stewartville, Minn., was killed. The complaint, filed Friday, offers no motive for the shooting.
The shooting happened about seven months after Tucker was discharged from court monitoring related to the 2022 fatal shooting of 19-year-old Johntae Hudson in a department store at the Mall of America, according to court records.
Tucker was charged with third-degree riot in the case and was adjudicated as delinquent, or found guilty, court records said. He was one of three teens who confronted or chased Hudson into the store where the shooting happened. The two teens who carried guns received long prison sentences.
Tucker was being held Friday at the Hennepin County jail. It wasn’t clear if he yet had an attorney.
According to the criminal complaint:
Surveillance video shows a black BMW pull into the parking lot in Brooklyn Park around 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 7. As the two victims exit a business, a man leaves the passenger seat of the BMW, hides behind another car and fires about 16 shots. The gunman then flees in the BMW.
Talon Metals, the company proposing an underground nickel mine near Tamarack, Minn., has backed away from a novel plan that would have used a subway-digging machine to carve an underground loop to reach the ore.
Instead, Talon, which hopes to one day supply the materials for Tesla’s electric vehicle batteries, will dig a straight path down to those minerals. The revised environmental assessment worksheet filed Dec. 12 incorporated public, state and tribal feedback, said Jessica Johnson, the vice president of external affairs for Talon.
“We’re reducing the amount of ground disturbance and the amount of rock that we need to handle and manage,” Johnson said.
By no longer using a tunnel boring machine, Talon has sidestepped early concerns from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources about waste rock, potential contamination of water and an untested technology for mining. But building a single, diagonal shaft underground also means that Talon will be blasting rock closer to the surface, at 100 feet below as opposed to 300 feet below.
Talon is still studying how many sulfides will be in the waste rock between the surface and the nickel it is seeking, the company said in filings. Sulfide minerals that can interact with air and water to create acid mine drainage, or release sulfates that are toxic to wild rice.
The company also abandoned a proposal to pile waste rock outside on top of liners, and now says it will store excess rock inside a central building — or ship it along with ore to a processing plant it intends to build in North Dakota.
Several parts of the facility have been moved inside this building, and the central mine shaft will also reach the surface indoors. Johnson described the concept as a “mine in a box.”
But the new design also introduces new questions, said Paula Maccabee of the environmental group WaterLegacy. She questioned how Talon would be able to supply enough fresh air for workers in the mine when the main opening is enclosed. Previously, the loop design had two openings at the surface of the ground.
