Environmentalists Challenge Squaw Valley Expansion

[Tom_H]

“KSL Capital Partners’ development proposal for Squaw Valley threatens everything we love about Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada,” Tom Mooers, executive director of Sierra Watch, said in a written statement.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article121188713.html

[wildhiker]

Thanks for posting. Those of us who don't live in the mountains often don't get any news about projects like this until we run into the bulldozers. It does sound like rather a large project. If they take over the parking lot, as the article implies, I hope they are going to find some other parking for summertime hikers.

[mulepacker]

Give me a friggin' break. Look at that headline...."threatens everything we love about Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada". If you don't like it, don't go there, but don't tell me that I can't enjoy the improvements either. The Sierra is a big place and enough room for everybody.

[Ska-T]

Give me a friggin' break. Look at that headline...."threatens everything we love about Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada".

Personally, I don't know anything about this project. This is the first I've heard of it. But if you are going to criticize the newspaper article or the HST post then at least be honest about it. Your quote has nothing to do with any headline, either the title of this post at HST or the headline of the original newspaper article from the Sac Bee, both which are the neutral and true statement, "Environmentalists challenge Squaw Valley expansion".

[SSSdave]

This kind of war has been ongoing for decades way back since the 80s. Back then I was a member of the Sierra Club and also a snow skiing enthusiast staying in group ski cabins each winter in North Tahoe.

Snippet:

“The environmental studies on the project were performed by third party professionals hired by the county and conducted to ensure the project would adhere to CEQA statutes and guidelines. In fact, this project has been one of the most thoroughly studied projects in the county’s history, and was reduced by 50 percent based on community input and feedback collected at over 400 community meetings over five years,” he said in a written statement.

Every time ANY development is made in Squaw Valley these same groups SUE. Sometimes what they are complaining about is legitimate as ski areas nation wide are notorious for doing some questionable environmental things especially with regard to real estate expansions. Thus over the decades the ski area (which has gone through a few owning companies) and is mostly on national forest lands, has learned to be extremely careful in their planning as they know whatever plans they make will require going through a gauntlet of opposition and certain monkey wrenching lawsuits.

Way way back in the day of the famous 1984 comedy ski movie Hot Dog, there was another group of mountain loving people that were not ski resort users but rather telemark and cross country skiing enthusiasts. And some of the latter hated hated hated alpine ski resorts and were all members of the...Sierra Club. The way the Sierra Club ran, any local group that did not like some development could get club support to sue whatever without regard to what other members in the club might have felt about an issue. That was great for lawyers haha! Eventually I became disgusted with the club because of numbers of questionable lawsuits of all manner beyond ski resort issues so quit. And that included a lot of SF Bay Area urban lawsuits for green belt etc area stuff that also alienated many others. In other words, control of the national club was taken over by lawyers who were also often political.

As I've seen it, ski resorts are similar to mountain towns. They are concentrated in historical places in the mountains where people lived and recreation and services developed over decades. Unlike some regions like the East Coast or Europe, where almost all are private lands, here in The West, the vast majority of mountain lands are in fact public lands we all own. Here in California we have huge national parks, national forests, and wilderness areas and a few zones where people live, especially in the Lake Tahoe region. The last place we ought be stopping expansion and development of ski resorts as long as such is environmentally reasonable is within or adjacent to where they already exist. What we don't need are new resorts being built in any of the vast more remote places in our mountains.

David

[Tom_H]

Well said, Dave.