A slippery slope for ski resorts

Beneath a steely sky and icy snow flurries, cross-country skiers glide over a 130-acre alpine meadow that Kirkwood Mountain Resort has preserved for wildlife and recreation.

In nearby restaurants, diners use plates and utensils that are reusable or made with recycled materials. And employees receive financial rewards for carpooling to work.

Kirkwood, a 35-year-old vacation community nestled in a box canyon south of Lake Tahoe, is a proud signer of a national environmental charter for ski areas.

Yet Kirkwood is the only California resort to receive an F in the current report card by an environmental coalition that rates Western ski areas for development practices, water and energy consumption and natural resource protection. And Kirkwood Mountain Resort and Development Co.’s plans for hundreds of dwellings and a ridgeline restaurant visible from wilderness trails have provoked the ire of community activists.

In the snow, construction workers toil on buildings where runoff fouled a waterway a few months ago, prompting an Alpine County district attorney’s investigation. The resort is powered by a diesel plant cited repeatedly by the regional air pollution agency.

The contrasting images of Kirkwood highlight the complex challenges faced by a multibillion-dollar industry. As resorts seek to address environmental issues, including global warming, they compete for customers in a market in which being bigger and better often entails new buildings, roads and ski runs that intrude on wildlife habitat.

Seven years ago, the National Ski Areas Assn. kicked off its Sustainable Slopes program, encouraging its 326 member resorts to adopt practices such as recycling, energy and water conservation and efficient transportation.

Using television spots featuring Olympic gold medal skier Picabo Street and other snow sports stars, the association has also embarked on a public education campaign against global warming called Keep Winter Cool. Its partner in the campaign is the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nationwide environmental group.

The resorts “have had a tarnished image in the past of commercializing what are really wilderness areas,” said industry analyst Nolan Rosall, president of RRC Associates in Boulder, Colo. “So there’s an effort to change the image to being really sensitive about the environment.”

About 180 resorts, accounting for 75% of the nation’s skier visits, have adopted the Sustainable Slopes program, which asks participants to complete annual surveys on their environmental practices. But last year fewer than a third of the 180 resorts completed the surveys.

Seventy resorts endorsed the Climate Stewardship Act by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), which would place mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions and is expected to be reintroduced this year.

Energy credits

Nationwide more than 20 resorts report they use 100% renewable power, which usually means they have paid a premium to buy energy credits for renewable power. “You add up your kilowatt usage, and you purchase an equivalent amount of green energy to be placed on the grid by a provider,” said Geraldine Link, the association’s public policy director.

However, critics say such efforts do little to address the effects of a real estate development boom like one underway at several California resorts.

“A lot of resorts are buying 100% ‘green energy,’ which is wonderful,” said Autumn Bernstein of the Sierra Nevada Alliance, part of the Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition, based in Boulder, Colo., which grades ski areas on environmental practices. “But resorts buying it tend to be the worst offenders when it comes to protecting the local environment. [They are] destroying old-growth forest, impacting rivers and creeks and building into undisturbed, road-less areas.”

The industry contends that its environmental performance has steadily improved and that the coalition is anti-growth.

“They love you to stay static or shrink,” said Bob Roberts, executive director of the California Ski Industry Assn.

“But if you turn so much as a shovel full of dirt, you become Darth Vader.”

On the national ski association website, information on Sustainable Slopes links to “The Green Room,” a display of initiatives by individual resorts.

At the Heavenly ski area overlooking Lake Tahoe, which received a C grade, chief operating officer Blaise Carrig said buying green energy helps protect the environment while reflecting the sensibilities of outdoors-loving skiers and snowboarders.

“You can’t kill the golden goose,” he said. “When people look at ski resorts and see ... overdevelopment or unattractive development, you are going against the sensitivity of the customer base.”

In response to concerns that proposed ski trail expansion would destroy 15 acres of forest, Carrig said plans have been scaled back to protect most of the larger trees. But Environmental Protection Agency officials said they remained concerned about protecting old-growth forest.

Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, California’s most visited resort, also received a C, partly because of proposed development and ski trail expansion.

Mammoth plans a five-star hotel built according to “green” standards and is considering geothermal power to heat buildings.

Lisa Isaacs, the resort’s environmental programs manager, said Mammoth hopes to use its own renewable energy rather than following other resorts in buying clean energy credits.

F rating appealed

Kirkwood Mountain Resort unsuccessfully appealed its F rating, which was partly based on plans to eventually increase dwelling units from several hundred to about 1,400.

Community activists fear the plans will cause traffic congestion and strain parking.

“The owners are not so interested in operating a ski resort as in real estate development,” said Reid Bennett, president of Friends of Kirkwood, which represents many property owners.

Resort officials said their plans would improve skiing and increase overnight visits while protecting natural resources by clustering buildings.

“I think some do not want us to have any development,” said David Likins, chief executive of Kirkwood Mountain Resort and Development Co. “We feel [our plan] will produce less disturbance over-all and be more environmentally friendly.”

Environmentalists are upset that the resort has proposed a restaurant on Caples Crest in Eldorado National Forest, which they say will be visible from the neighboring Mokelumne Wilderness.

To help win Forest Service approval, the resort said it agreed to strictly limit the height, hours and lighting.

But Katherine Evatt, board president of the Foothill Conservancy, remains opposed. “National forests were not created to provide a fine dining experience.”

In November, rain flushed sediment from a construction site at the base of the resort into a tributary of Kirkwood Creek.

A state game warden referred the case to Alpine County Dist. Atty Will Richmond, who is investigating. Likins said the resort fired the contractor.

Some of Kirkwood’s problems stem from its remoteness.

The resort, whose major investor is Charles E. Cobb, ambassador to Iceland under former President George H.W. Bush, straddles El Dorado, Alpine and Amador counties at nearly 8,000 feet.

The community utility company, which Cobb also controls, provides diesel-generated power. According to Duane Ono of the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, the utility has paid about $104,000 to settle alleged air emissions violations over the last decade.

The utility company is exploring ways to connect to the power grid. But Cobb said getting approval for electricity lines across more than 20 miles of sensitive terrain is a long shot.

“If logic would prevail,” he added, “the great god of environmental sensitivity would say the line power and underground power ... is not as big a negative as burning diesel fuel.”

tim.reiterman@latimes.com