The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs has approved a Wisconsin casino project in which the Mohegan Tribe was once a key partner, an event that will have little impact on the Mohegans, a tribal official said Monday.

Chuck Bunnell, the Mohegans' chief of staff, said the Mohegans had long ago backed away from the Wisconsin-based Menominee Tribe's plan to develop an $800 million entertainment and casino complex at a former greyhound park in Kenosha, about 200 miles from the Menominees' reservation in Keshena.

"While we remain very supportive, privately and publicly, of the Menominee project, the Mohegans have not taken the lead in driving that project for quite some time," Bunnell said. "... It's better for the Mohegans if the project goes forward."

The Mohegans have said they invested about $12 million in the project, some of which they may be able to recoup. Bunnell said he was not at liberty to discuss details of the two tribes' agreement.

Signed in 2004, the deal originally called for the Mohegans to build the Kenosha casino and manage it during the first seven years of its existence. Subsequently, however, the project ran afoul of the federal government's dim view of off-reservation casinos and opposition from the state and another tribe, the Forest County Potawatomi, which operates a casino in Milwaukee.

The Menominees lodged an appeal in federal court of the BIA's 2009 rejection of the tribe's land-into-trust application for the Kenosha project. In 2011, the federal government lifted its ban on off-reservation casinos.

The Menominees learned last week that the BIA, in a reversal, had approved the tribe's casino plan. Before the plan can move forward, it must also be approved by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com