Over the past 10 years, summer vacation trips have centered around camping, canoeing, fishing and whitewater rafting in the Upper Delaware Basin, particularly the 50 miles along the upper Delaware river just northeast of Port Jervis, N.Y. Besides being very beautiful by itself, the historical signs posted along the river somewhere revealed that this area gets enough rain, snow, etc., to supply fully 10 percent of the nation's water. Which is why the Upper Delaware is one of the important sources of water supply to none other than the Big Apple, New York City.
So after the mid-term 2006 elections, with the hard-won victories of Democrats, I was hopeful that Democratic policies would at least begin to reverse some of the extremely negative policies under the Bush Administration--including environmental ones (gamble with a jump!)
So it was a bit of an unwelcome shock to learn early into his term, Democratic Gov. of New York Eliot Spitzer was coming out in favor of a huge $600 million proposal with the St. Regis Mohawk tribe to develop a casino in the Catskills at Monticello, NY, where there is presently a speedway. While I'm a New Jersey resident, and thus it won't affect my taxes directly, I've been up that way enough to see a lot of "No Casino" signs, and have seen already the pressures of development--before any casino proposal--on that very beautiful area up there--as more wildlife are forced off their natural grazing land, and venture into more "civilized" areas for their food. As an example, deeper into the woods by a lake with cabins, it's still possible to see as many as 150 deer come down for water around dusk. But driving up, there seem to be more hit by cars, just enough to be noticeable. Casinos, of course, would add to the pressures of development.
Spitzer, rightly, is obviously concerned about economic development, and the Catskills resorts have faded in popularity as a first-choice destination. But when you look at the standard news coverage by the major commercial newspapers, TV stations, and cable channels, IMO both these media and the politicians do a dis-service to the public by their two-dimensional coverage. The issue is framed as "new construction = new jobs," and one would be led to believe that approving new construction would allow any politician to claim bragging rights for doing something positive for the state. And, as a Democrat who has seen the New York State population numbers, if now-narrowly Blue New York continues to lose people, it could lose another Congressional Democratic District, which of course is reflected in the balance-of-power in the U.S. House of Representatives. So in principle, retaining jobs and people in New York state is potentially a good thing for the Democratic Party, too.
And beyond just Democrats caring about casinos in the Catskills, those interested in the environment have a stake. As everybody should know, the Boston to Washington, D.C. corridor is loosely considered a "megalopolis," more or less one big city. But what is not readily apparant to most of us that live in this major metro area, is that the Upper Delaware Basin also happens to be--within the National Park System--among the top 10 most visited wilderness areas in the country. In short, one of our true national treasures--in terms of parkland--is about to undergo what I'll call a "casino squeeze."
From an economic point of view, it appears that the issue of the financial and job benefits from casino gaming--any casino, anywhere in the U.S.--is actually a net loser. Nationwide, the casino business takes in about $15.5 billion, according to several articles in the Los Angeles Times, which covers the issue extensively because some one-third of all casino business in the country is actually handled by tribes in California. Yet, according to an article in Scientific American (10-3-2001) the costs out-run the gains by almost 2:1. (Actually, 1.77:1, using the net losses of $27.5 billion/year cited in the 201 article).
Worse, from a policy point-of-view, Spitzer's backing of a casino in the Catskills ignores a policy path with a proven record of success--historic preservation. A report by the Empire State Development Corp. showed that every $1 million invested in historic preservation yielded five more construction jobs, and three more permanent jobs--i.e. more bang for the buck--than the same amount invested in conventional new construction. Surprised? Me too. Need a second source? Look up the Preservation League of New York's website (preservenys.org) and on p. 4 of the 32 page report their estimate is each $1 million invested in historic preservation yields $1.9 million in economic activity. It cites a long string of successes like downtown Corning, Saratoga Springs, Troy, Utica, Syracuse, etc. For those that need a visual, the website shows it as sort of an "Orion's Belt" across a strip of New York roughly above Albany. And, to place things in context, the part of New York State's economy that includes hospitality generates some $30 billion/year in economic activity, with 400,000 jobs, and is 5 percent of all the private-sector jobs in the state--meaning even bigger that the banking and securities industries made famous by Wall Street.
But there's more. As an industry, nationwide (1996) there was some $115 billion spent on maintenance and improvement-type construction, or 2/3's the amount spent on new construction. In NY State, what all this can mean at street level, for local merchants, is that compared with the average of $367/person spent by the routine tourist, the tourist that is attracted to historical sites spends an average of $688. Once again: 1.87:1, or nearly 2:1 a better deal for the local merchant.
So, while I'm no fan of Repub. ex-NY Gov. George Pataki, it appears that the people who worked on the economics reports provided enough information to make much better policy choices than a push for investing in casinos. If NY State goes ahead with this policy, chances seem high that this will be at best a losing investment, and on the down side, another potential for an Off-Track-Betting (OTB) disaster, where, if memory serves, OTB was the only gambling business in the world to actually lose money (I'm sure others more expert in that end of the subject can jump in on that particular point.)
Now add to the mix that there are a substantial number of visitors to the Upper Delaware area to multiply those dollars by. New Jersey's Dept. of Environmental Conservation website estimates that there are some 500,000 visitors/year to the upper Delaware, about half of them using the river (like me) to canoe, kyack, raft, inner tube, fish, picnic and the like. As to the jobs that might be generated by at least some bigger focus on historic preservation, Empire State Development Corp. noted plans to have a high school in New York City specifically dedicated to "Preservation Arts," where high school graduates could be paid $20/hour, and those with experience could rise to $65/hour. Sounds good to me, especially as now NYC is hemmoraging with very high dropout rates (50 percent?), which if it cost $9,000/year/student, the loss of each student who doesn't graduate HS represents a "dead-weight" loss to the system of $108,000 each!!!!!! (emphasis supplied!!!)
We have just a little more territory to cover here to round out the picture, so please stick with it. On the casino side of the business, competition is naturally fierce. The Monticello Casino would compete for the same customers as Las Vegas, Atlantic City (where there is a proposal for a $4.5 million investment in a high-speed--125 mph--express rail line that would take high-rollers (and wannabe's) from NYC to AC in 40 minutes), the casinos in Connecticut (Foxwoods, etc.), and now the casino's and proposed casinos in Pennsylvania ("You've got a Friend in Pennnsylvania)--in Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and now two competing proposals in the Pocono resort areas (A winning proposal so far by 64 year old Louis DeNaples, for the Mount Airy Resort, for 3,000 slot machines and 400 hotel rooms; but which is being appealed by Pocono Manor, who planned a $3 billion extravaganza near Tobyhanna, PA, under the ownership of Matzel Developers, according to The Morning Call online, 12-6-06, out of their Harrisburg office.
Then of course there are the competing projects of casinos planned for Biloxi, and elsewhere, along the Gulf Coast, in an effort to rebuild casinos damaged in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As the Jack Abramoff trial unfolds, more details on the "economics" of the casino business are likely to emerge.
Meanwhile, internationally, there are plans to try to build a "supercasino" in Manchester, UK, where one supposes that one attraction will be to bet on Manchester United 's soccer team closer to the actual soccer games. And building contractors want to further develop casino gambling on Macao, to take advantage of the great number of Chinese willing to participate in the "three G's" associated with casinos--"gambling, graft, and girls" (L.A. Times 5-19-2002).
To sum up, it seems to me that Democratic candidates need to come to grips with the casino issue as a policy issue--I don't think they will be able to coast along just by pointing to the Abramoff issue. It seems to me that there is a real chance for leadership here--by at least highlighting historic preservation as part of the economic piece of the casino debate.
Slot machines will not supply water to New York City and environs.