A Closer Look at the Proposed Expansion

The Proposal

The 2010 Environmental Impact Statement

The U.S. Forest Service manages public land on which MAA operates and proposes to expand the ski area.  Federal agencies must fully consider significant environmental impacts of proposed actions and disclose them to the public in a formal impact statement.  In addition, Congress requires the Forest Service to maintain water quality and viable populations of wildlife, including Pacific fisher, an endangered forest carnivore that hunts prey at the exact location where MAA proposes ski area expansion.

In 2007, a federal appeals court ruled that the Forest Service violated environmental laws when it approved ski area expansion.  In particular, the agency failed to protect landslides from development, did not protect soils in the restricted Ashland Watershed, and ignored impacts to fisher and its habitat. 

On March 26, 2010, the Forest Service issued a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS) seeking to remedy legal violations in approval of expansion. 

The DSEIS states that 200% more high-risk landslide terrain will be directly impacted than previously disclosed (from five to 15 acres).  It admits the entire expansion area is “restricted” to protect Ashland’s municipal water supply, contradicting prior agency claims that its forest plan allows “developed recreation” with no limit on soil destruction.  Further, the DSEIS affirms that expansion will displace two Pacific fishers from their old growth forest habitat. 

The DSEIS is open for public comment until May 6, 2010.  Learn how to comment and stop the expansion again here.

The 2004 EIS and Decision Approving Expansion

The 2004 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) supposedly put to rest public concerns about ski area expansion after many years of “exhaustive” study, according to MAA.  However, it raised more questions than it answered, and three federal judges agreed that serious questions remained when they ordered the Forest Service to set aside the FEIS and its Record of Decision (ROD) approving expansion as the MAA proposed it.

If not challenged by public interest plaintiffs in federal court, the ROD would have allowed 71 acres of old growth forest to be clear-cut and a larger 500-acre portion of the McDonald Peak Roadless Area to be irreversibly fragmented.  It also approved four new mechanized lifts, a second lodge at the bottom of the glacial moraine known as “The Bowl,” construction of a mile of maintenance roads, additional night lighting, an enlarged parking lot, plus new power, water and sewage lines at the source of Ashland’s natural water supply.

In authorizing the MAA proposed expansion, the Forest Service ignored the US Environmental Protection Agency, the City of Ashland, ski area users and environmental groups who raised serious concerns and proposed reasonable alternatives that meet the purpose and need for ski area expansion, including improved terrain balance, safety and economic viability. 

The Issues

Headwaters of Ashland Creek at Ski Area

Ashland's Water Quality

Mount Ashland is composed of steep slopes with granite soils that erode when disturbed.  Ski area construction in 1963 caused soil erosion more than two orders of magnitude greater than natural background rates, with disastrous impacts to water quality that are well documented. 

In 1963, Ski Ashland did not apply mitigation measures to limit soil and water impacts.  Even if expansion diligently mitigates impacts, by definition, it will cause new impacts.  Cumulative erosion resulting from the existing ski area, expansion and planned logging in the “Ashland Forest Resiliency Project” is guaranteed.

Unlike the 1963 development, ski area expansion would disturb 15 acres of landslide terrain, most of which overlaps riparian areas associated with streams.  The Forest Service confirmed in 2003 that its landslide hazard mapping system reliably predicts mass movement after disturbance, and landslides, once triggered, “can carry large volumes of rock, soil, and vegetative material down slope” into Ashland Creek.

The Forest Service in 2004 denied that landslide terrain merited protection from ski area development.  It changed its story in the DSEIS, though it proposes no changes in 2010 to protect Ashland Creek from disturbance of 15 acres of high-risk landslides in the expansion. 

The Forest Service claims that there won't be much erosion in the first place and that they will catch all of the sediment that otherwise would enter streams as a result of development.

There has been a lot of debate over just how much the expansion would affect Ashland's water supply. Nobody denies that the expansion will increase erosion and sedimentation of streams in the East Fork of Ashland Creek watershed.  According to the FEIS, erosion rates will double for at least two years, assuming that mitigation measures are effective.

There are many reasons to doubt the accuracy of Forest Service erosion analysis, most notably the fact that in 45 years of the ski area's operation, it has only twice collected sediment running off the ski area to quantify sedimentation rates.  The best funded and most comprehensive of those efforts, according to principle investigators, failed to record accurate data and grossly underestimated erosion impacts of ski area operation to the watershed.

Sediment traps installed between 1979-1983 collapsed or overflowed every time they were monitored. Instead of using sound scientific data, the Forest Service relies on extrapolations of data from research in Idaho to guess how much sedimentation will result from an expanded ski area -- something the principle researcher in Idaho told them not to do. 

It is undeniable that ski area expansion is bad for the Ashland Watershed.

Old-growth Shasta red fir in expansion area

Old Growth Forest & Roadless Area

This expansion area is one of the few places in southern Oregon where the same forest exists now that did prior to European settlement more than 160 years ago. 

Endangered Species Habitat

Expansion would destroy old growth forest occupied by endangered Pacific fisher.  The DSEIS states that two fishers exist on Mount Ashland, and expansion will displace both of them by removing habitat and introducing chronic noise disturbance that fishers will avoid.

In 2004, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that listing fisher under the Endangered Species Act is “warranted but precluded” by other priorities.  In other words, fisher is endangered as a matter of science, but there are too many species nationwide that need similar protection.  Early in 2010, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Obama administration to expedite listing the fisher as endangered, including at Mount Ashland.

Two rare and endangered plants also exist in the expansion area.  Mount Ashland lupine, an endemic legume, exists on 43 acres here and nowhere else on the planet.  Henderson’s horkelia, of the rose family, finds its primary habitat here, though small populations are located elsewhere along the eastern Siskiyou Crest. 

Expansion will destroy lupine by placing ski runs and a snow fence over plants.  Horkelia would be destroyed by construction of a second lodge below “The Bowl.”

Jeopardizing Financial Stability

Despite costing more than $17 million dollars up front, the MAA expansion plan assumes annual operating costs that require a significant increase in business. The MAA borrowed more than $100,000 just to open the ski area in 2009.  An expanded ski area will be even more expensive to operate.

Ski Ashland never has drawn sufficient visitors (139,000) required in a single year for expansion to break even.

Assuming that MAA can raise the $4 million needed to cut trees and install new lifts in the first phase of expansion, it will be cash-strapped and mortally vulnerable to any downturn in business caused by bad snow or decreased skier traffic in a challenging economy.

Do we want to sacrifice our clean water, old growth forests, unique plants and endangered animals for an expanded ski area that will operate under a looming shadow of bankruptcy?

Since the ski area opened in 1963, it has suffered bankruptcy three times, most recently in 1991, after two years of poor snow.  The last time, in 1991, precipitated the “Save Mt. Ashland” campaign and public bail-out that created the MAA.

Should Ski Ashland fail again, the City of Ashland and its taxpayers will be responsible to "restore" the ski area to an undeveloped condition, which will cost tens of millions of dollars.

Banking on Uncertain Snow

Expansion would clear ski trails down to 5,950 feet elevation above sea level on a mountain known to suffer variable snow conditions.  According to the Forest Service, the lowest elevation of an expanded ski area will have, on average, 14% less snow than the existing lodge area. This means that poor snow years will fail to keep expanded runs open.  MAA and government data show that snowfall in six of the past 22 years would not have supported ski area operation in the expansion area. 

Moreover, scientists at Oregon State University predict that future winters will bring less snow and more rain to Mount Ashland, as climate change caused by atmospheric greenhouse gases continues to accelerate (Nolin and Daly 2006). 

Why build new runs that may be kept out of use when the snowpack is too low?