These Birds Are Too Noisy

The east side of the Sierra Nevada remains an unspoiled natural wonder because it is so remote. Mammoth Mountain and its little sister ski area at nearby June Mountain are the only Eastern Sierra peaks on which the public has allowed developers to put lifts. Mammoth, which sprawls in part across land owned by the U.S. Forest Service, draws a million skiers and snowboarders in a good year, 85% of them driving up from Southern California.

In April, everyone else seems to stream up U.S. 395 for the opening of fishing season. Summertime backpackers explore John Muir’s “gentle wilderness,” from Yosemite to the spires of Mt. Whitney. Families kayak past Mono Lake’s tufa towers or soak in the natural spa of Hot Creek, also a popular trout stream. They watch the alpenglow blush the peaks and marvel at the quiet.

Now consider a 200,000-pound Boeing 757 roaring down the runway of little Mammoth-Yosemite airport, driven by twin engines generating 80,000 pounds of thrust. Inside are perhaps 190 passengers concluding a week’s ski vacation at Mammoth Lakes, population 7,039, by returning home via Dallas or Chicago. The takeoff roar rattles from the peaks to the hot springs. Jet exhaust wafts over the sagebrush, deer, eagles and fly fishers.

What’s wrong with this picture?

To the managers of Mammoth Mountain ski area and Intrawest, the giant Canadian resort developer, airline service is the next key in the billion-dollar makeover of quiet Mammoth Lakes into an Aspen or a Vail. They got a $29-million federal grant to lengthen and widen the runway and hoped to start daily service with American Airlines by 2003, anticipating (at least for starters) four 757 flights a day. The Federal Aviation Administration paved the way by declaring--amazingly--that the jets would have no significant impact on the environment.

Fortunately, someone had the sense to yell “stop.” The state attorney general’s office pointed out the obvious--that the air service could “profoundly and permanently” alter the environment. State and federal fish and game agencies joined in, and environmentalists sued. The FAA relented in late July and agreed to study the matter further, without saying just how thoroughly.

A full environmental impact study is needed, along with examination of alternatives such as using the larger airport at Bishop 39 miles to the south. Bishop is in an open valley at 4,120-feet elevation, offering better winter weather and a better safety margin than Mammoth’s peak-guarded 7,128. A shuttle ride from Bishop to the town of Mammoth would take about 45 minutes longer than the ride from the closer airport--making the trip about the same as the drive from the Eagle County Airport to Vail in Colorado.

The Eastern Sierra is a public treasure--a rare refuge from noise, sprawl and pollution. There’s no doubt that expanding the Mammoth airport would help the Mammoth resort become an upscale ski destination. But Californians deserve a full accounting of how such an expansion would affect the surrounding landscape, which is cherished by people of all incomes and recreational tastes.