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12/4/2003--The
Ski Area Environmental Scorecard for 2003/2004 has been released,
and once again ski resorts in the Sierra Nevada received the
highest grades in the West, a region that has traditionally scored
well in the area of environmental policies and management. Colorado
claimed both the highest score and the lowest score in the West,
with Aspen and Buttermilk getting the top marks and Vail, once
again, bringing up the bottom.
Among other top rated resorts receiving
an "A" grade were Alpine Meadows, Sundance, Aspen Highlands,
Wolf Creek, Taos, Eldora, Sierra Summit, and Stevens Pass. In
addition to Vail, the lowest rated resorts receiving an "F"
were, Breckenridge, Copper, Big Mountain, Big Sky, Snowbasin,
Beaver Creek, Silver Mountain, Crested Butte and Grand Targhee.
The annual report, produced by the Ski Area Citizens’
Coalition (SACC), rates 76 of the busiest US resorts for
environmental impact in such heavily-weighted categories as Avoiding
Ski Terrain Expansion on Undisturbed Land, Avoiding Construction
on Undisturbed Land, Avoiding Impacts to Threatened, Endangered
or Candidate Animal, Plant and Aquatic Species, Avoiding Terrain
Alteration in Sensitive Areas, Avoiding Terrain Alteration in
Environmentally Sensitive Areas and Avoiding New Snowmaking.
The scorecard gives far less weight to mitigation efforts such
as Avoiding Quantifiable Water Degradation, Wildlife Habitat,
Forest and Stream Protection, Recycling, Water Conservation,
Energy Conservation, Pollution Reduction, and Traffic and Emissions
Reduction.
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For putting so much emphasis on strictly
avoiding new development rather than environmental improvement
and mitigation efforts, the the Ski Area Environmental Scorecard
has been criticized by some, both inside and outside of the resort
industry. The Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition responds by saying
that it has determined "destruction of undisturbed forests
is the single most damaging ecological impact a ski area can
undertake."
The environmental group cites studies on
wetland mitigation practices that conclude such approaches are
a "losers game." It references statements from the
EPA, Colorado's Department of Natural Resources, and the well
known Baseline Wildlife Study in connection with Vail's infamous
expansion proposal in the early 1990s, all of which support of
the Coalition's view.
Critics of the scorecard find fault with
a grading system which rewards ski areas for doing nothing, either
by design or by default, while penalizing resort operators who
try to improve the visitor experience while attempting to mitigate
their impact as much as possible.
Case in point: tiny but extremely busy
Mountain High Resort in
Southern California has always been rated quite highly on the
scorecard, yet locals view the ski area as little more than a
blight on the land. A skate park of a "resort" with
a trailer park-style base lodge (yes, the building really is
nothing more than a series of trailers, each more than 30 years
old, bolted together), it's a disgrace that new ownership indicated
they would rectify after taking over some years back. That was
long before they figured out that with the amazing and unexpected
success of their marketing plan, an upgrade wouldn't be necessary.
Correctly identifying their target market,
resort management went after a young, urban, So Cal snow- boarding
clientele. Mountain High quickly became, in the words of a respected
resort marketing veteran last year, "the darling of the
ski industry, at least among those who have never been there."
Through the sale of extremely affordable season passes by the
many thousands, and innovative marketing, the area racked up
unprecedented skier day numbers in a very short time.
Until recently area management made no
effort to limit ticket sales. The wild success of their marketing
approach has lead to regular, and massive traffic jams on busy
weekends (as well as whenever it snows, not long back Mountain
High finished 3rd in annual California skier day visits behind
only mega-resorts Mammoth and Squaw Valley, and 13th nationally,
ahead of places like Telluride and Steamboat). Thes traffic snarls
often run for miles down the highway into the local mountain
community of Wrightwood.
Picture this: Thousands of cars on the
hill, spewing pollutants, in near-grid lock, on a fairly regular
basis. A ski area with terrible facilities that were never expected
to accommodate more than 1/3 the current client numbers. Inadequate
parking, forcing massive numbers of visitors to bootleg parking
spots in the forest and along the highway. An ownership that
does little or nothing to improve the situation, or to reduce
the impact of so many visitors on the local forest environment.
Why? because there is no need. Their numbers
are simply staggering for a 450 acre ski area. And yet precisely
because Mountain High's ownership does nothing, the Ski
Area Environmental Scorecard for 2003/2004 gives the resort a
"B," and Mountain High finishes with a score of 65.4%,
well above the median for every region in the nation. |
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Who Is The Ski Area Citizens'
Coalition (SACC), Anyway?
The SACC, the folks behind the
Ski Area Environmental Scorecard, is affiliated with the environmental
group Colorado Wild (CW). The idea of producing a scorecard originated
with Jonathan Staufer, a Vail businessman who serves on CWs board
of directors. He and Colorado Wild staffers Jeff Berman and Ben
Doon are responsible for getting the ball rolling. Today Berman
and Doon are the main forces behind the production of the scorecard.
The three, Staufer, Berman and
Doon have an interesting history that probably explains a lot
about how the scorecard's grading criteria (and its alleged biases)
came to be. All three were vocal members of Ancient Forest Rescue,
an environmental group that worked very publicly to stop Vail's
notorious and controversial expansion a few year's ago. Doon
and Berman, then college students, put together a slide show
presentation documenting Vail's plans and the threat to the endangered
Canada lynx. Their tireless efforts raised awareness of the issue
and eventually resulted in much support for a series of legal
efforts to stop the expansion.
Eventually the legal challenges
had run their course and Vail won the right to begin construction.
The night before the heavy equipment was to arrive Berman and
Doon were camped with Ancient Forest Rescue supporters outside
the resort in anticipation of a last-ditch protest stand the
next morning. “We weren’t going to do anything until
we saw the trucks roll," and they were going to find some
way to stop them, Doon later told author Daniel Glick.
They never got the chance. That
night someone, or some group, in what was later dubbed the biggest
act of eco-terrorism in history, climbed the ridge above the
resort and set fire to numerous buildings, including the posh
33,000 square-foot Two Elk Lodge, the ski patrol headquarters,
a chairlift and other structures.
In Glick's excellent book Powder Burn,
Doon tells of being awakened by shouting at about six a.m., half
awake he crawled out of his tent and saw the smoke rising from
on the ridge. Doon told Glick that right off he realized what
the possibility of arson would mean. “Everybody’s immediate
fear was that if this was arson, we’d be prime suspects,”
Glick quotes Doon.
And they were. Despite a claim
of responsibility by the notorious Earth Liberation Front (ELF),
the leaders of Ancient Forest Rescue, including Berman, Doon
and Staufer were all contacted and interviewed by law enforcement.
Eventually Doon and several other AFR members were subpoenaed
to appear before a federal grand jury in Denver which was investigating
the fires. They were pressured with threats of jail time unless
they told all they knew about the activities of the AFR on the
night of the fire. Apparently the grand jury decided that there
was insufficient evidence to indict Doon and the other AFR members.
Five years later the case remains unsolved, though still under
investigation by the FBI.
Vail has finished in the bottom
ten for all three years that the scorecard has been issued, and
received the lowest rating of any resort the past two years running. |
Two Elks Lodge on fire. Photo courtesy
Vail FD
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Perhaps even more importantly critics also
point to the very real issue of comparing ski resorts built on
lease holds (such as Mountain High, and most others in the US)
with large ski resorts such as Vail, which own vast tracts of
private holdings. It could be reasonably argued such resorts
have every right to develop land that they own. Meanwhile the
resorts built on leased US Forest Service land have little to
no undisturbed land of their own to expand onto anyway. It's
the proverbial apples and oranges. Is it really fair to compare
two totally different types of operations one against the other?
Still, the mainstream media loves the Ski
Area Environmental Scorecard. "Rankings like this make it
easy for reporters to do a story. You can fit it into a minute
and a half on television," has said Tom Lalley, former Program
Director for Environmental Media Services, a nonprofit communications
clearinghouse dedicated to expanding media coverage of environmental
issues. "They (scorecards) show us how to get complex concepts
across to a public who has limited time to devote to these issues."
For its part, not surprisingly, the National
Ski Areas Association (NSAA) strongly disagrees. NSAA spokeswoman
Geraldine Link once reportedly characterized the scorecard as
"an ill-warranted publicity stunt." In the wake of
publication of the first score card in November of 2000, according
to a report in the Durango Herald, Telluride spokesperson Kelly
Ladyga termed the effort a "smear campaign." The war
of words between the NSAA and the SACC is ongoing. Today the
Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition claims they are receiving cooperation
from about half of the resorts graded in the Ski Area Environmental
Scorecard, but the SACC recently publicly charged the NSAA with
secretly "unleash(ing) a harsh rebuke, blackballing these
resorts" that answer the SACC survey from which much of
the scorecard data is derived.
Agree or disagree with its basic premise,
not far below the surface and sound-bite fluff, the Ski Area
Environmental Scorecard is a valuable resource for those willing
to take the time to explore the PDF files behind many of the
grading decisions. The material is well organized, allowing interested
parties the opportunity to discover what expansions and new developments
various ski areas may have in the works, with links to important
planning documents and figures.
Three years ago the National Ski Areas
Association released its Sustainable Slopes Environmental Charter.
The SACC wasted no time in labeling the ski industry iniative
a "greenwash," yet Colorado based ski writer Bob Berwyn
may have expressed best the desire of the majority of
the sports participants when he wrote that both sides would best
be served by an effort find common ground. "What should
be a serious, thoughtful dialogue on issues that are important
to all of us has degenerated into an immature schoolyard feud.
Instead of a complementary and mutually beneficial effort to
find solutions, we have a playground shoving match," Berwyn
wrote some time ago on First
Tracks. "The two sides almost seem to be speaking different
languages, with environmental groups emphasizing conservation
of undisturbed lands and protection for wildlife habitat, while
the resorts tout their efforts in the realm of energy conservation
and recycling."
Berwyn continued, "How unfortunate
- for the environment and for skiers and snowboarders, who have
apparently been left out of the loop by both sides....what's
needed is some common ground. Somewhere, sometime, the two sides
must realize that they do, in fact, share some interests. And
that common ground needs to incorporate feedback - and not just
superficial statistics - from the millions of skiers who have
the most at stake." Berwyn has advocated that a complete
and thorough survey of resort skiers and boarders be conducted
to find out where they stand on environmental issues pertaining
directly to ski resort expansion and development.
"At the end of it, there could probably
still be some varying interpretation of the results," says
Berwyn. "But at least they could both say they'd cooperated
on an environmental project. And we'd all be that much smarter
for knowing what it is that skiers actually think about these
issues."
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