WINTER 1996-1997

SKI AREA HEATS UP
by Michelle Berditschevsky, Project Coordinator

Representatives of Save Mount Shasta and of the Native Coalition for Cultural Restoration of Mount Shasta met with new Forest Supervisor Sharon Heywood and other officials from the Shasta-Trinity National Forests. Our attorneys Charles Miller, Esq. and Christina Meldrun, Esq. (see story on Legal Team below) also attended the meeting.

We requested the meeting in order to discuss unresolved cultural preservation issues on Mount Shasta. However, we learned that the Forest Service is again attempting to move forward with the ski area permit awarded to Carl Martin in 1988. We stated our position that cultural and environmental preservation issues had to be settled before the Forest Service could proceed with the permit, especially in light of requirements by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation that more of the Mountain be evaluated for cultural significance.

The Forest Service stated that it is their intention to set up a meeting with the proposed ski area developer, Carl Martin, and representatives of the Native Coalition and Save Mount Shasta, in order to see if mitigations can be worked out that would allow the ski development to proceed.

This implies that the Forest Service still claims the validity of the 1988 permit. The permit has been on hold because subsequent appeals and lawsuits forced the Forest Service to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). Since that time, the Forest Service has had to go through the NHPA Section 106 Process which requires the evaluation of impacts on cultural resources. This culminated in the Mount Shasta Historic designation (see article above), and in the finding that the proposed ski development would have adverse effects on cultural resources.

Now the Forest Service is attempting to proceed without making a new decision on the proposed ski development and re-evaluating alternatives on the basis of the adverse effects. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, whom we alerted about this, has indicated that they will issue a letter to advise the Forest Service of their obligations under NEPA and NHPA.

In short, what this long involved process means for Mount Shasta is that we still have recourse to administrative procedures which will hopefully decide issues short of a lawsuit.

SKI PARK EXPANSION
RAISES QUESTION OF ALTERNATIVES

This season, the Mount Shasta Ski Park, the existing ski resort on the south slopes of the Mountain, added a $2.2 million expansion on Coyote Butte that adds four new ski runs, a triple chairlift, and improvements of visitor facilities. The lift opens 125 acres of new skiing on private land, and increases the resort's capacity by 20 to 30 percent more skiers.

When news of this appeared, people called us thinking that the Ski Area we have been opposing was being built. The names are confusing. The Ski Park is the existing development off Highway 89 and is mostly on private land. The Ski Area is the proposed new ski resort on public land up Everett Memorial Highway in the Panther Meadows region of the Mountain. The Ski Area is associated with plans for condominium village development (including parking lots, hotels, shopping centers, and a potential of 200,000 gallons wastewater per day) high on the Mountain's slopes on adjacent private lands adjacent to the Forest Service land that the developer hopes to lease. While we would prefer to see all of Mount Shasta remain in its natural beauty and mystery, we have confined our efforts to opposing ski development on public lands.

Expansion of the existing Ski Park raises the question of whether a second ski development on Mount Shasta is justified. The Forest Service listed the Ski Park Expansion as one of its alternatives in the effects analysis which evaluated the impacts of ski development on cultural values. The analysis found that Ski Park Expansion had the least adverse effects of the six alternatives considered. Yet the Forest Service has so far refused to consider this alternative as valid.

A specter raised by the Forest Service's recent push to re-activate the Ski Area permit is the potential for a mega ski resort with a combined capacity of 10,000 skiers per day on Mount Shasta. This would mean a Mountain dominated by skiing, losing much of the pristine beauty and peace which so many of us value and on which Native American cultural values are based.

We will continue to oppose a second ski development, and keep a watch over the existing Ski Park which threatens future expansions, possibly on public land, that could have major impacts on the ecological and cultural values we are committed to preserving.

LONG-AWAITED MEETING WITH INTERIOR TO DISCUSS HISTORIC DISTRICT

Assistant Secretary of the Interior George Frampton has agreed to meet in the near future with representatives of the Native Coalition for Cultural Restoration of Mount Shasta, Save Mount Shasta, and our attorneys. We have been asking for a high level review of the Keeper's revision of the Historic District boundary ever since it was issued in November 1994. Since that time we have been in contact with various people in Washington DC to keep reminding them that this meeting needs to take place, and that the Mount Shasta issue is not resolved.

BACKGROUND

The original Mount Shasta Historic District eligibility determination of March 1994 encompassed all of the Mountain down to the 4,000 foot elevation, due to the Mountain's great spiritual and cultural significance to all the surrounding Native American tribes. However, because of the threat to their vested interests, proponents of development waged strong opposition against the Historic District, turning political leaders and communities against the designation. As a result, in November 1994, the Keeper of the National Register raised the boundary of the Historic District from its original 4,000 foot elevation to treeline at 8,000 feet, in spite of our efforts in Washington DC to obtain enough influence to withstand the attack. The result was a drastically reduced Historic District from 150,000 acres to a mere 19,000, all of it rock and ice, leaving out much of the Mountain's significant places and denying its integrity.

For the Keeper of the National Register to give in to these political threats sets a precedent which weakens Historic Preservation and the protection of Native American sacred sites nationwide.

A QUESTION OF INTEGRITY

The Keeper's revision was based on the assumption that much of the mountain below treeline lacks sufficient integrity, because of past logging, to qualify for the National Register. However, integrity is not an issue that should be judged unilaterally by government agencies, but must be decided in consultation with tribes whose cultural interests are affected by the decision. This is clear from National Register Bulletin 38, Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Traditional Cultural Properties, which describes how government agencies are supposed to work with the National Historic Preservation Act with regard to Native American sites. Yet the question of the mountain's integrity was never brought before the Native Americans whose cultural values were protected by the Historic District. The upcoming meeting seeks to correct this.

The Native Coalition and Save Mount Shasta will present new information on the issue of integrity. We will urge the Department of the Interior either to reinstate the original Mount Shasta Historic District boundary or to negotiate a new boundary in consultation with the tribes and other interested parties.

The hoped-for outcome will be an expanded Mount Shasta Historic District. The Historic District designation engages the Historic Preservation Process for all federal projects proposed within its boundaries, and provides opportunities for Native American cultural restoration programs on the Mountain. If the Assistant Secretary denies review, we will have to appeal higher to Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt or to President Clinton, or as a last resort, file a lawsuit.

MOUNT SHASTA LEGAL TEAM EXPANDS

The San Francisco law firm of Sherman and Sterling has come on board to assist our protection efforts. Christina Meldrun, Esq. has offered her services on a pro bono basis and is assisted by other attorneys in her firm. She will be working closely with Charles Miller, Esq. of the Gray Cary Ware &Freidenrich Palo Alto law firm, who has helped Mount Shasta pro bono for over five years. The law firms are donating attorney's fees and some legal costs.

Both firms are also adding the Native Coalition for Cultural Preservation of Mount Shasta to their list of Mount Shasta clients. Before this, only individual Native American traditional leaders were represented.

The increased legal team and a weightier legal voice for Native Americans, bring new strength to our combined coalition. Together we will continue to oppose inappropriate development and to work on positive solutions for Mount Shasta.

HERGER BILL-HR 563-DIES IN COMMITTEE

This ugly bill threatened to amend the National Historic Preservation Act, omitting protection of undeveloped sites (Native American sacred sites are typically left in an undeveloped state) and denying protection of Mount Shasta. Fortunately, HR 563 did not make it to the House floor during the last Congressional session. Testimony presented by the Native Coalition, Save Mount Shasta, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Agriculture (Forest Service), convinced the House Resources Subcommittee on Parks, Forests and Lands not to move on the bill. However, the author of the bill, Congressman Wally Herger (R-Redding, CA), was recently re-elected. We hope he will not try to resubmit another version of this misdirected bill.