The Fall issue of SAM carried an article by William Berry entitled, “Public Funds and the Private Sector.” Among other things, it went into some detail on the pending $750,000 in matching federal (Bureau of Outdoor Recreation) funds for a snowmaking installation at New Hampshire’s state-owned Mt. Sunapee Ski Area. As follow-up to that article we present a summary of a November 9 meeting at King Ridge, N.H. between Maurice Arnold, Northeast Regional Director for B.O.R., a skier himself, and a group of area operators from New Hampshire and Vermont. Also attending was Commissioner Gilman of the N.H. Dept. of Resources and Economic Development.
The background is that the New Hampshire legislature passed a bill approving $1,537,000 for a Mt. Sunapee snowmaking system, contingent on 50 per cent funding by B.O.R. Such grants were not supposed to be made, according to B.O.R.’s own guidelines, unless competing private facilities are operating at 65 per cent of capacity.
Statements are not quotes, but paraphrases.
Maurice Arnold: I make the decision subject to appeal to the Secretary of Interior and the Courts.
There are two basic issues. First is the philosophical — whether or not to have state-owned facility compete with privately operated facilities — this was decided affirmatively by the N.H. Legislature. Second is the economic impact — what effect will the project have on the private sector. The latter is not yet clear.
Mt. Sunapee’s particular profit or loss as result of the project is not a B.O.R. concern.
I did not come to this meeting with my mind made up. (This statement was in response to a direct question.) The 65 per cent capacity figures in the manual are unrealistic and the guideline has been dropped. The guidelines are internal and not mandated by law.
Commissioner Gilman: When the Legislature approved the bill and the Governor signed it, it became law that the state should install the snowmaking system. I support this law.
Once the state decision is made, rejection of matching funds by B.O.R. would be an invasion by the Federal Government of the state’s right to make its own decisions. Rejection of this application could create a bad precedent in this regard.
Bill Bardsley, Manager, King Ridge, New London, N.H.: Impetus for snowmaking bill came from Sunapee region small business operators and was successfully carried thru Legislature by Sunapee area members. Demand arose not from skiers but because local small business thinks snowmaking can solve its problems. Problems will not be solved because they lie in Sunapee’s situation as a commuter ski area — little skier money is spent outside Mt. Sunapee itself because skiers go home at night. Snowmaking will not change this.
King Ridge is half size of Sunapee in investment, vertical drop and trail acreage, but King Ridge attendance in last three winters is 15 per cent higher than Sunapee’s (King Ridge 212,000, Sunapee 185,000). King Ridge has no snowmaking. Sunapee does have problems, but snowmaking will not solve them. Its operation as state-owned area creates handicap to proper management, leaves it unable to create a glamour atmosphere, does not allow proper promotion.
Dave Currier, Manager, Pat’s Peak, Henniker, N.H. Snowmaking has not extended Pat’s Peak’s season. In December, 1973, we spent $4,500 trying to make snow and sold $1,100 worth of tickets. In the spring, we closed with plenty of snow but no skiers.
Bob Fried, Comptroller, Waterville Valley, N.H. More depth is needed in the economic impact study submitted to the B.O.R. Only skier attendance loss is indicated — no effort made to indicate the loss in dollars or the percentage of profit that competing areas would lose.
If Sunapee were able to offer early season skiing on artificial snow, Waterville Valley would suffer adverse impact — we operate at less than capacity in this situation already.
Tim Gannett, Crotched Mountain, Francestown, N.H. I protest that the Snow-engineering economic study submitted to the B.O.R. included Crotched Mt. figures, but no survey ever was taken at Crotched.
Crotched Mt. is a marginal operation. It never has shown a net profit, and any loss of skiers is critical to us.
Our snowmaking system covers almost 70 per cent of the area and extends top-to-bottom. We have tried early season skiing on artifical snow with poor results, even when we offered free skiing. Now we are cutting our snowmaking budget by 75 per cent and will use the system just to patch and improve mid-winter snow cover — but the big investment is still there.
Herbert Schneider, Cranmore Mt., North Conway, N.H. (Schneider not present but sent letter). We have had snowmaking at Cranmore five years but have never been able to extend the season. We use it only to improve conditions in the normal season.
Hans Thorner, Magic Mt., Londonderry, Vt. (Thorner spoke for Vermont Ski Areas Assn.) Snowmaking at Sunapee would affect Vermont ski areas along I-91 as well as those in N.H.
Ski areas are tax payers. Use of this B.O.R. grant by Mt. Sunapee would put privately owned ski areas in position of helping finance their publicly owned competition. This will have a devastating effect.
Frank Heald, Pico Peak, Rutland, Vt. This seems like too much money to spend for this amount of snowmaking. The use of government money to develop ski areas represents unfair and discriminatory competition against the free enterprise system.
John Giles, Manager, Mt. Ascutney, Brownsville, Vt: If more of the taxpaying American public was aware of what was going on, there would be objection to the use of government money for a snowmaking project like this, especially when it was related to more important public needs.
The heavy use of energy by a snowmaking system should be considered in relation to future shortages.
Mike Beebe, Owner, Temple Mt., Peterborough, N.H., and President, N.H. Ski Area Operators Assn. (Beebe presided at meeting).
The economic impact study does not appear to answer the questions the B.O.R. should ask.
Privately owned areas cannot borrow money in this volume and must pay high interest rates on what they can.
We think the B.O.R. should obtain more economic information.
Three graduate students from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, Jack Lyness, Bart Brewer and David Brown, presented information gathered as a school project.
The skier loss projected by Sno-engineering’s impact study was translated into dollar volume loss to the ski areas covered. High range dollar loss projected reached a maximum figure of $39,580 per season for Pat’s Peak. High range loss to King Ridge was $29,858. Bardsley said this exceeds King Ridge net profit for the year 1975-76 season by about $4,500, and also exceeds the area’s 15-year average net of $21,000.
Area operators expressed strong feelings that the B.O.R. should obtain more profit and loss figures to which the projected losses attributed to Mt. Sunapee snowmaking could be related. Arnold said that this would be difficult.
