Mount Ashland ski area plan goes to court - By Bill kettler - Mail Tribune

August 3, 2006

Mount Ashland ski area plan goes to court
By Bill kettler
Mail Tribune

Opponents of the Mount Ashland ski area's expansion plan will get their day in court Monday.

U.S. District Court Judge Owen Panner will hear oral arguments at 1:30 p.m. in the James A. Redden Courthouse, 310 W. Sixth St., Medford, in a case that pits three environmental groups against the U.S. Forest Service, which approved the ski area's expansion proposal in December 2004.

The Rogue Group, Sierra Club, Ashland-based Headwaters and Oregon Natural Resources Council sued the Forest Service after it approved a 71-acre expansion proposal that includes two new chairlifts, 16 new ski and snowboard trails, 200 additional parking spaces, a tubing hill and a new lodge. Their suit contends that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to adequately analyze the amount of erosion that would be generated by the project, and failing to consider a smaller, alternative expansion proposal.

The plaintiffs contend that erosion is a significant issue because the ski area lies within Ashland's municipal watershed, and extensive erosion could degrade the city's water supply.

The ski area is operated by the Mount Ashland Association, a nonprofit corporation that introduced the expansion proposal in 1998 as a way to add more gentle terrain (and attract more skiers) to a ski resort that has relatively few trails suitable for beginners and learners. The plan has drawn wide support from many skiers and snowboarders, but opponents don't like aspects of the plan that would require logging on forestland along the Middle Branch of Ashland Creek that has not previously been logged.

"We're not against expansion per se," said Tom Dimitre, chairman of the Rogue Group, Sierra Club. "We're for protecting the Middle Branch."

The Mount Ashland Association intervened in the suit as a defendant alongside the Forest Service. Bill Little, president of the association, said opponents of the expansion have greatly overstated the potential for erosion and that the ski area's goal is "to eliminate any erosion from what we do on the mountain."

Monday's oral arguments will mark the beginning of the end of a process that began in December 2004, soon after the Forest Service approved Mount Ashland's plan. Eric Navickas, an Ashland resident who opposes the expansion, sued the Forest Service on his own, and the environmental groups filed their suit several weeks later. (The suits will be heard jointly as a consolidated case.) Since then, both sides have prepared documentation to support their claims and submitted them to the court for review.

The administrative record of documents submitted to the court runs to more than 30,000 pages, said Steve Johnson of the Ashland Ranger District of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Johnson has been working on the project, along with his other responsibilities, since it was introduced.

In court, each side will have an opportunity to make a brief oral presentation to the judge. Marianne Dugan of Eugene will represent the plaintiffs and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Odell will represent the Forest Service. Judge Panner can pose questions to the plaintiffs and the defendants.

"I don't expect it'll last more than an hour," Dimitre said.

The judge's decision could be handed down in days, weeks or months. If he finds for the Forest Service, work on the expansion could begin within days or weeks because the ski area already has filed a work plan with the Forest Service to cut trees on the new ski trails.

The Forest Service, however, has forbidden any timber cutting until Judge Panner rules on the suit.

The ski area might not necessarily decide to cut trees immediately, "but if we're going to do it, we need to be prepared to do it," said Little.

The judge could rule for the Forest Service but order that no trees be cut for a specific period to give plaintiffs time to file an appeal, which would go to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Dimitre said the environmental groups feel they have a strong case and expect to win at the local court level, but they would "certainly consider" filing an appeal with the 9th Circuit Court, which has often ruled for environmental groups.

Johnson, of the Forest Service, said attorneys have told him it could take two years for an appeal to make its way to the 9th Circuit Court.

If the environmentalists win the suit, Little said the Mount Ashland Association would have to study the judge's opinion to decide a course of action. If the judge points out specific weaknesses in the environmental review, the ski area could address those points and resubmit a new proposal.

"If the (environmental review) process is flawed, we go back and re-evaluate," he said.

Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492 or e-mail:bkettler@mailtribune.com.