Ski Area Development After the National Forest Ski Area Permit Act of 1986: Still an Uphill Battle
By C. Wayne McKinzie
INTRODUCTION
Congress enacted the National Forest Ski Area Permit Act of 1986 (NFSAPA) in order to revamp the Forest Service's dated permitting process for ski areas located on national forest lands. Because the Act was designed to make it easier and more economically feasible to navigate new ski area projects through the Forest Service permitting process, the ski industry saw NFSAPA as a “huge victory.” NFSAPA has failed dramatically, however, despite ski industry hopes and congressional intent. In essence, the legislation created new and improved ski area permits but provided no means for obtaining them. It has failed to inform the wide-open discretion of Forest Service decision makers who throughout the permitting process face a battery of environmental opposition to commercial use of public lands.
Numerous resort developers have entered the permitting process in recent years only to become stalled in a fierce and seemingly endless battle for approval with Forest Service officials. One apparent survivor of the process, developer Tom Dempsey, appraised his long, frustrating effort to win recent Forest Service approval for his Snowcreek ski area as an experience that would “guarantee” that his will be “the last ski area built in California.”
Ski resorts have not always faced such opposition. From 1960 to 1975, major ski areas opened on federal lands at the rate of more than one a year. Most of these resorts received permits and completed development very quickly. California's Alpine Meadows, for example, filed permit applications in the spring of 1961 and began operating its first lifts and base lodge the following fall. Today, the trend is much different, despite passage of NFSAPA. Only one major resort project, Silver Mountain in Idaho, has neared completion in the past decade, and that one probably succeeded only because it was built on the site of an existing ski area in a region reeling from a local depression. With rare exception, proposed resorts have by necessity sought permits for the use of national forest lands, but have stalled in the development phase because of obstacles presented by the Forest Service permitting process.
Simply stated, NFSAPA has not lived up to expectations. Although all commercial use of wilderness land provokes bitter opposition, especially from environmentalists, it is particularly striking that new ski resort projects which increasingly address environmental concerns have fared so poorly in the wake of congressional legislation enacted to promote them. The legislation followed in spirit the long-standing multiple-use philosophy for federal land management, but took no practical steps to correct the Forest Service's recent drift away from that philosophy. While bolstering its new commitment to conservation measures, the Agency has continued to support logging interests but has fallen short on its historical commitment to recreation, another equally defensible use of the national forests.
This Note analyzes the factors behind the Forest Service's current failure to include ski areas within its multiple-use mandate. Part II charts NFSAPA's multiple-use heritage. The section describes recreation's place in the national forests and how the Forest Service's multiple-use mission has gone astray despite NFSAPA's attempted course corrections. Part III analyzes NFSAPA's impotence in Forest Service decision making. The section specifically discusses how a persistent lack of guidance has left Forest Service decision making vulnerable to environmental bias and offers a case study of the effects on ski area projects.
Following the discussion of why NFSAPA has been so ineffective in advancing ski area development, part IV describes the multiple merits of ski area permits for use of national forest lands. The conclusion reached is that today's ski area proposals have made great progress toward being environmentally sound and that they are economically and recreationally beneficial uses of the public forests. Thus, today more than ever, ski resorts fit squarely within the multiple-use philosophy that the Forest Service has recently chosen to ignore, NFSAPA having been ineffective in changing Forest Service decision-making procedures. Part V offers recommendations for correcting the permitting process as it applies to ski areas, particularly through counteracting the Forest Service's shift away from its multiple-use mandate. Congress can best achieve NFSAPA's goals and ensure multiple-use management of the national forests by providing Forest Service decision makers with clearer guidance for balancing environmental concerns with other factors.
Congress enacted the National Forest Ski Area Permit Act of 1986 (NFSAPA) in order to revamp the Forest Service's dated permitting process for ski areas located on national forest lands. Because the Act was designed to make it easier and more economically feasible to navigate new ski area projects through the Forest Service permitting process, the ski industry saw NFSAPA as a “huge victory.” NFSAPA has failed dramatically, however, despite ski industry hopes and congressional intent. In essence, the legislation created new and improved ski area permits but provided no means for obtaining them. It has failed to inform the wide-open discretion of Forest Service decision makers who throughout the permitting process face a battery of environmental opposition to commercial use of public lands.
Numerous resort developers have entered the permitting process in recent years only to become stalled in a fierce and seemingly endless battle for approval with Forest Service officials. One apparent survivor of the process, developer Tom Dempsey, appraised his long, frustrating effort to win recent Forest Service approval for his Snowcreek ski area as an experience that would “guarantee” that his will be “the last ski area built in California.”
Ski resorts have not always faced such opposition. From 1960 to 1975, major ski areas opened on federal lands at the rate of more than one a year. Most of these resorts received permits and completed development very quickly. California's Alpine Meadows, for example, filed permit applications in the spring of 1961 and began operating its first lifts and base lodge the following fall. Today, the trend is much different, despite passage of NFSAPA. Only one major resort project, Silver Mountain in Idaho, has neared completion in the past decade, and that one probably succeeded only because it was built on the site of an existing ski area in a region reeling from a local depression. With rare exception, proposed resorts have by necessity sought permits for the use of national forest lands, but have stalled in the development phase because of obstacles presented by the Forest Service permitting process.
Simply stated, NFSAPA has not lived up to expectations. Although all commercial use of wilderness land provokes bitter opposition, especially from environmentalists, it is particularly striking that new ski resort projects which increasingly address environmental concerns have fared so poorly in the wake of congressional legislation enacted to promote them. The legislation followed in spirit the long-standing multiple-use philosophy for federal land management, but took no practical steps to correct the Forest Service's recent drift away from that philosophy. While bolstering its new commitment to conservation measures, the Agency has continued to support logging interests but has fallen short on its historical commitment to recreation, another equally defensible use of the national forests.
This Note analyzes the factors behind the Forest Service's current failure to include ski areas within its multiple-use mandate. Part II charts NFSAPA's multiple-use heritage. The section describes recreation's place in the national forests and how the Forest Service's multiple-use mission has gone astray despite NFSAPA's attempted course corrections. Part III analyzes NFSAPA's impotence in Forest Service decision making. The section specifically discusses how a persistent lack of guidance has left Forest Service decision making vulnerable to environmental bias and offers a case study of the effects on ski area projects.
Following the discussion of why NFSAPA has been so ineffective in advancing ski area development, part IV describes the multiple merits of ski area permits for use of national forest lands. The conclusion reached is that today's ski area proposals have made great progress toward being environmentally sound and that they are economically and recreationally beneficial uses of the public forests. Thus, today more than ever, ski resorts fit squarely within the multiple-use philosophy that the Forest Service has recently chosen to ignore, NFSAPA having been ineffective in changing Forest Service decision-making procedures. Part V offers recommendations for correcting the permitting process as it applies to ski areas, particularly through counteracting the Forest Service's shift away from its multiple-use mandate. Congress can best achieve NFSAPA's goals and ensure multiple-use management of the national forests by providing Forest Service decision makers with clearer guidance for balancing environmental concerns with other factors.
