1. A SAM editorial questions the health of our industry’s partnership with the Forest Service.
2. The Canada lynx—has it become the surrogate of choice for bigger issues of growth?
3. A critical look at the controversial White River Forest plan and what it portends.
4. Recapping Vail’s Category III expansion and how the courts ruled on some key issues.
Is a Longstanding Ski Industry Partnership Unraveling?
Opinion
SAM readers know how vital Forest Service land is to the ski sport: the 134 areas operating wholly or partly on the National Forest account for some 30 million skier visits, representing about 60 percent of all skier visits in the U.S. National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) estimates that the combined investment of these areas in infrastructure and facilities is over $2.5 billion.
We believe that the partnership between the ski industry and the Forest Service over the past 35 years or so has worked— imperfectly, sometimes unevenly, but generally well. The ski industry frequently has benefited prodigiously from the knowledge and experience of many dedicated Forest Service employees who truly understood all aspects of ski area operations and who found few problems in discharging their environmental responsibilities at the same time. Today, however, there are “disturbing signs of this long-term partnership unraveling,” in the words of a closely involved observer.
When one partner in a partnership starts to make fundamental changes in the relationship, it’s time for the other partner to pay attention. Indeed, it’s time for the whole ski world to pay attention because this segment of the sport and industry is so incredibly important. The ski area industry has always recognized the multiple-use principle that underlies the Forest Service’s stewardship. Though in the early days, timber and the other extractive uses of the land were paramount, recreation was always important to the Forest Service. The development of winter recreation by the ski industry meshed nicely with the mission of the Forest Service, and the agency encouraged investment by the ski industry, this investment focus becoming the basis for GRFS—the investment-based graduated rate fee system in place for more than two decades.
What seems to have evolved—and recently accelerated to breakneck speed—is that the Forest Service is pulling back from its traditional multiple-use mandate in favor of an overriding focus on ecosystem protection. And this is happening in the face of a galloping demand for outdoor recreation.
At one point, there were visions dancing in the Forest Service head of environmentally sensitive families—young and old, fit and handicapped—all enjoying the hiking, swimming, fishing and countless other benign recreations that a kind, avuncular Forest Service would make available. Marketing concepts were brought in so that all these clean, pure recreational uses of the National Forest would become the Forest Service “brand.” Ski areas were urged to identify with the Forest Service so that the skiing public would become aware of this brand.
Trouble is, recreation is fast becoming the 800-pound gorilla and finds itself, instead of the loggers and miners, in the crosshairs of environmental opposition. Of course, it’s not all skiing. There are rafters, kayakers, mountain climbers, hikers, mountain bikers and so forth. These people, who certainly like to feel they are environmentally benign, now have to come to grips with being perceived as the enemy. So does the ski industry. It is against this backdrop that NSAA today is developing its Environmental Charter—a proactive posture, designed to minimize our targetability.
Inevitably, the Forest Service has refocused its thinking to reflect the reality of public attitudes toward the environment. Listen to what Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck said in various speeches this year about the role of recreation on national forest land: Our overriding objective must be to maintain the health, diversity and productivity of our lands and waters; recreation use must occur within those ecological sideboards. . . In the end, recreation uses. . .are about limits. Talking about limits to growth is very difficult for such a prosperous culture as ours. . .Unfortunately, such growth. . .often carries consequences. . .We are committed to… ensuring that the rapid growth of recreation on national forests does not compromise the long-term health of the land.
The sentiments are not new. From the great Gifford Pinchot on down, there has always been a strong, often passionate, conservationist ethic underlying the Forest Service mission— an ethic, cynics notwithstanding, that is shared by most of the ski area industry. What is new is the shift in the way it plays out in policy and regulation on the ground. What is also new is the frightening lack of balance in the attitude the Forest Service now seems to bring to its mission and its apparent willingness at times to even turn its back on recreation. To be fair, the Forest Service still talks the recreation talk; but they no longer always walk the walk.
On the ground, we have been seeing a steady erosion of the role the Forest Service used to play. Agencies like the Fish & Wildlife Service, EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have always had a role to play on behalf of species protection, clean air and water and wetlands—all as required by Congress. But increasingly, these agencies are making that role a more independent and intrusive one as they develop their own resource protection requirements. All of this has significantly diminished the role of the Forest Service in the review process, and seemingly with little protest from the Forest Service.
An issue like streamflow, for instance, can get an area tied up with all these federal agencies, plus local agencies, all regulating an area on exactly the same activities. They may each use different assumptions, different methodologies. It’s become a sport to see who can be the toughest, who can make the applicant jump higher. There’s no one saying, “This doesn’t make sense!” In previous times, the Forest Service led; they directed traffic. But this is happening less and less today.
Here it is instructive to look at the White River National Forest Proposed Revised Land and Resource Management Plan and at the preferred alternative (Alternative D) identified by the Forest Service. This is a draft document and there could be changes between now and the scheduled closing of the public comment period on February 9, not only in its provisions, but in the Forest Service’s preferred alternative. (See also article starting page 54.)
The White River National Forest includes many crown jewels of Colorado snowsports, among them Aspen, Snowmass, Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Copper. Of the six alternatives presented, the one chosen by the Forest Service as its preference is arguably the least favorable to recreation. The philosophical underpinning is clear in one sentence from the document: [It] “addresses the idea that a higher priority be given to physical and biological resources than to human uses of the Forest,” adding that, “Alternative D places a low emphasis on new developments for human uses or recreation.”
In a document designed to set regulatory policy for the next decade or more, it is clear that no expansion would be tolerated and it is not hard to visualize atrophy for existing ski operations, even though the plan calls for their continuance. Furthermore, Alternative D puts a virtual lock on any hopes for low-impact alternative transportation: no aerial interconnect between Aspen and Snowmass, for instance; no light rail up the I-70 corridor. Wildlife trumps polluting gridlock.
It is recreation, not just snowsports that bears the brunt. Alternative D provides for no new biking trails for more than 10 years, while snowmobilers would actually get cut. Put in emotional terms, Alternative D favors any four-legged creature over any two-legged recreationist.
But, isn’t this just the forest plan of one forest and not necessarily representative of national policy? Technically yes, but those who follow the Byzantine process of USFS policy-setting say that opting for Alternative D bears the unmistakable fingerprints of top Forest Service brass, and philosophically the heart-print of candidate Gore.
This magazine, together with the industry it serves, might well agree that granting ecosystem protection a higher priority than recreation is appropriate. The cumulative impact on the national forests of today’s huge demand for recreation is undeniably a valid concern; so are many of the real estate parlays by some of the recreation providers. All too often we undo our record as sensitive land stewards by inviting the slamming we get. But this still doesn’t justify the Forest Service’s rigid anti-recreation solution of Alternative D.
Another indicator of current Forest Service thinking comes from its response to the issue of listing the Canada lynx under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act. (See also article starting page 51.) USFS has been part of a four-agency group preparing a Lynx Conservation Strategy (LCS), the provisions of which will eventually be incorporated into all forest plans with lynx habitat. This project was entrusted to a panel of wildlife biologists. Predictably, the early versions of the strategy contained language and principles that were potentially devastating to the snowsports industry. The Forest Service, perhaps sensitive to the lack of recreation input into the development of LCS, has given NSAA and Colorado Ski Country the opportunity to informally make comments and suggestions, many of which have been incorporated into later versions. Notwithstanding this cooperation, the LCS, right from the start, has been developed uniquely from the conservation perspective—hardly a comfortable fit with the stated recreation goals of the Forest Service.
Once in place, embedded in the various Forest Plans, the LCS may, to a scary degree, determine such operational matters as what night grooming and snowmaking will be permitted. (Lynx are posited as being spooked by light even though they have been seen hanging out in subdivisions.) LCS will result in the re-evaluation of tens of thousands of permits for consistency with the strategy. There is quiet hope the final document, thanks to ski industry input, may be better balanced; but what is discouraging is that the initiative for whatever balance might result came not from the Forest Service, but from outside.
The third exhibit in our case for the emerging bias at the Forest Service against recreation are recent appointments. Chief Mike Dombeck heads an organization that is rich in talent in many disciplines, especially including winter sports and recreation. What better way to signal a shift away from recreation than to choose people with no recreation background, no winter sports background and no Forest Service experience for key positions in forests with highly significant recreation resources? It is happening, and in case you think it’s only in Colorado, think again. On September 24, the position of forest supervisor for the Bridger-Teton National Forest went to someone from the Bureau of Land Management, where there is no recreation component: she is a wildlife biologist with no Forest Service experience. And this for Jackson Hole? Go figure the current mindset of the Forest Service towards recreation!
Chief Dombeck insists he has no grand plan for tightening things up for us, and he had a meeting with a broad spectrum of recreation interests on October 20 to “jointly determine what the future of recreation on the forests will be.” That meeting, however, produced mainly more noble intentions to further study the problems. “Recreation needs a champion at the Forest Service,” it was intoned. Indeed!
We’re pleased, but so far, actions are speaking louder than words and we hope Chief Dombeck will find concrete ways to demonstrate that the partnership is alive and well and not unraveling. And we hope it happens soon. It could start with a change in choice of preferred alternative for the White River National Forest plan to an alternative that better reflects the needs of recreation, while still maintaining high environmental standards.
