Titans Clash Over Development in the High Sierra : Environment: Ski area entrepreneur Alex Cushing and computer giant Bill Hewlett are involved in a court battle. At issue is clear-cutting in a fragile canyon near Lake Tahoe.

Call it Silicon Valley versus Squaw Valley: a clash between two octogenarian California entrepreneurs who built their separate empires and disagree over the fate of a fragile Sierra Nevada canyon.

On one side is Alex Cushing, the relentless, hard-driving founder of Squaw Valley ski area who is accused of ruthlessly cutting thousands of alpine trees in pursuit of his lifelong dream of making his mountain a world-class resort.

Opposing him is billionaire Bill Hewlett, who helped create the electronics giant Hewlett-Packard in a garage and has hooked up with the Sierra Club to challenge Cushing’s vision of the future.

These 80-year-old titans of California business are locked in a court battle over the expansion of Squaw Valley USA into scenic Shirley Canyon, a corner of the High Sierra where Hewlett hiked as a youth and where Cushing--in his old age--likes to ski.

In an unusual hearing last week, Placer County Superior Court Judge James D. Garbolino convened court on top of the mountain so he could see for himself whether the ski resort illegally cleared 4,000 trees--including some that were growing when Christopher Columbus set sail.

Followed by an entourage of attorneys and expert witnesses, the judge hiked down a steep ski bowl, examined tree stumps and fallen logs, and discovered an area where more trees were cut recently--in apparent violation of a court injunction.

Hewlett, the Sierra Club and Placer County Dist. Atty. Paul Richardson were so offended by Squaw Valley’s logging--including a 1989 violation of the injunction against tree cutting--that they want the ski resort to pay civil penalties of up to $10 million.

They also have asked for a ban on use of the spectacular ski run where the trees were felled, a new injunction against more logging planned nearby, and a court order requiring reforestation of the slope.

“We want them to be enjoined from using the fruits of their illegal activity,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Joe Barbara said as he surveyed the logged area from the ski area’s Silverado chairlift.

Cushing, who is best known for bringing the Winter Olympic Games to Squaw Valley in 1960, is unrepentant about chopping down the trees. He protests that the threatened penalties would put him out of business.

“They’re really trying to crush me,” he said. “I’m the biggest employer in Placer County, and they treat me as if I’m running a crack house.”

The call for harsh penalties reflects deep animosity that has grown over the years between Cushing and some of his critics, who say he has long run Squaw Valley as a fiefdom and blatantly disregarded county environmental and planning laws.

Cushing has been caught constructing buildings without permits and has let sediment from the ski slopes pollute creeks, Barbara said. Recently, the resort was fined $350,000 for spilling 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel and then trying to hide it in snow.

But even many critics respect Cushing’s accomplishments. Since building his first chairlift near Lake Tahoe’s north shore in 1949, Cushing has made Squaw Valley one of the world’s premier ski resorts, with 33 lifts, dozens of expert runs and an ice-skating rink on top of the mountain.

Cushing insists that he is an environmentalist who has made the frozen wilderness accessible to 700,000 visitors a year. “I regard myself as a stronger environmentalist than anybody because we sell beauty,” he said in an interview.

Cushing has many more plans for Squaw Valley and wants to live to see them completed: underground parking, a new alpine village and development of the area into a year-round resort.

“He realizes he may not have much time left and he hates to get slowed down,” said his attorney, Bob Maddox. “He often sees complaints from people who want to do things differently as intrusions on his accomplishing his dreams.”

But Cushing’s aggressive style has long antagonized his neighbors. For some, the last straw was his assault on Shirley Canyon, a popular summer hiking area on the north side of the resort.

Part of Shirley Canyon was once a state park but was incorporated into the ski area when California took over some Squaw Valley operations during the 1960 Olympics. Cushing acquired the land in the early 1970s after then-Gov. Ronald Reagan agreed that the state should get out of the ski resort business.

Cushing battled Placer County for more than a decade before he finally won approval to install the Silverado chairlift, which extends nearly to the bottom of Shirley Canyon. Squaw Valley property owners and the Sierra Club filed suit in 1988 to block the resort from clearing the canyon slopes of trees. But one weekend in January, 1989, before the court could hear the case, Cushing’s loggers cut down thousands of trees.

Immediately afterward, the Sierra Club obtained a court injunction halting further logging. But even with the court order in effect, the ski area felled more trees two months later.

Whether Cushing had legal authority to cut the trees in January, 1989, is a matter of dispute. But he acknowledges the second cut violated the court order, calling it “an honest mistake” that occurred when a ski area official sent a crew to cut trees without realizing the area was off-limits.

Cushing’s opponents, however, contend that the logging was part of a brazen plan to cut the trees and open the new ski run despite the court actions.

“The picture that emerges is of a sudden decision to clear-cut the trees and get them out of there before something could be done to stop it,” said Terry J. Houlihan, who is representing Hewlett in the case.

Cushing contends that he logged the Shirley Canyon ski run as a safety precaution, noting that two skiers died at Squaw when they crashed into trees. And he scoffs at the notion that he should plant new trees.

“We took those trees out for a good reason,” he said, “and we would take them out again.”

Hewlett, one of the 40 richest men in America, owns a house a few miles away and learned of the dispute over Shirley Canyon through a newspaper story.

As a young man in the 1930s, Hewlett had hiked with his father into the canyon along the North Fork of Squaw Creek and developed a love for the area. When property owners near Squaw Valley backed out of the lawsuit in 1989, he agreed to help finance the Sierra Club’s fight to save the canyon.

Houlihan said the Silicon Valley pioneer joined the suit to make sure Cushing could not outgun the Sierra Club and the relatively poor mountain county. Hewlett is now paying more than half of the cost of the suit.

“He’s not an interloper,” Houlihan said. “Mr. Hewlett has a heartfelt concern about the Squaw Creek area and the trail (through Shirley Canyon).”

The lawsuit, which seeks penalties of up to $2,500 for each tree that was cut, charges that Cushing has engaged in unfair business practices by flouting the law. Cushing has countered by collecting letters from other ski resort operators, saying they do not believe Squaw Valley has competed unfairly against them.

In a flamboyant gesture last week, Cushing stood on the steps of the historic Auburn courthouse where the trial is being held and offered to settle the lawsuit by spending $1 million to improve the environment at Squaw Valley.

In a biting letter to Hewlett outlining the offer, Cushing alluded to ground water contamination caused by the electronics industry, saying, “I understand there are a few environmental problems in Silicon Valley too.”

Hewlett, the district attorney and the Sierra Club rejected the proposed settlement. Cushing later acknowledged that he was going to spend more than $1 million anyway on the environmental improvements covered by his offer.

Garbolino, who is hearing the case without a jury, toured the area of the Silverado chairlift at the request of both sides in the case. A skier, he noted that as a teen-ager he attended the 1960 Olympics at Squaw Valley.

The judge’s discovery of new logging in the canyon surprised attorneys for both sides. Squaw Valley’s experts examined fresh saw marks on logs and branches with their needles still intact and told the judge that the trees had been cut since last winter--despite the injunction issued by a previous judge. Attorneys for Hewlett, the Sierra Club and the county said they would consider whether to seek new sanctions.

For Cushing, who began developing Squaw Valley into a ski area in an era of few environmental restrictions, today’s procedures are cumbersome and annoying.

“He was used to doing it his way,” said Maddox, Cushing’s attorney. “He realizes he scarred the mountain in years past and now he’s trying to make up for that. But he hates to slow down just because someone wants him to wait and go through the bureaucratic process.”