QUAPAW, Okla. (AP) – The chairman of the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma is defending the tribe's request to put 160 acres of land it has bought in Arkansas into federal trust.

Chairman John Berrey says in letters to the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in Nashville, Tennessee, and to the federal assistant secretary of Indian Affairs that there are no plans for a casino on the land in Pulaski County. Berrey said there are no plans to change the current agricultural use of the land near the Little Rock Port Authority's industrial park.

County officials have objected to the tribe's plan and call the application incomplete and premature. Berrey says the application is complete.

Berrey says the land is part of the tribe's original home in Arkansas and contains Quapaw burial mounds and artifacts.