Never Satisfied - Meadoze & Ril3y at it again!

[fshrgrl]

New lift, and bagging more acreage not enough for the folks at Meadows, now they want to take water away from the fish in the East Fork of the Hood River in drought years to make snow for their precious ski area. And once again, while we all are enjoying ourselves on Mt. Hood and trying to salvage what we can of a bad season making the best of the hand we've been dealt, our friends at CRAG are working hard and taking on the fight to make sure that our playground is properly protected and taken care of. I'm sure I speak for many when I say - THANK YOU CRAG!!!!

[larrythellama]

i had a long drawn out post on the actual working knowledge of snow making and resorts as a whole, but after rereading your post i see logic does not work with an emotionally charged woman.

 

i hope you never go to any ski resort as you are a purist.

[Thrashador]

Geez Larry,

 

Why the hesitation to edify?!?!

Please do pontificate on the partical physics of snowmaking and how public interest is best served by drawing water out of the upper reaches of the East Fork of the Hood River during periods of low precipitation? Would an artificial carpet on one or two measley runs and/or a halfpipe have made for better skiing at M3adoz3 this year? My mind is yet made up on the subject however my instinct says, at least when it comes to M3adoz3 and land development, something is definitely rotten in the state of Denmark. I'm keen to know what others think...

[PhilomathSloth]

"We engaged them, we collaborated with them," Riley said. "The Friends of Mt. Hood will say anything or do anything just to stop any project that we want to do."

 

Is this not the truth?? Everytime someone wants to better their business, someone will always be there to bitch and moan about something.

 

The Friends of Mt Hood and CRAG are up in arms because this has been listed as a categorical exclusion. But it does qualify as an exclusion folks. That is how the laws are written. Sounds to me like some people need to read up on natural resource policy. This is not a major federal action, it affects only 5 acres of land. Thus it is not deemed a 'major federal action' the project is not subject to the scrutiny that the National Environmental Policy Act imposes. Riley has gone above what the rules say and has opened the subject up to the public and taken notes of those comments and adjusted his record of decisions.

 

I too am all for water quality and protection of salmon and habitat. But trying to force an Environmental Analysis on the project is not the way to go about this. If you are truly concered about the amount of water in the East Fork of the Hood River, then someone should be lobbying for increased in-stream water rights for that river.

 

Just my two cents.

[barjor]

I don't know shit about this but wouldn't the snow melt and go back into the river during spring?

My normal "anti everything" atittude would be against it though

[Thrashador]

"We engaged them, we collaborated with them," Riley said. "The Friends of Mt. Hood will say anything or do anything just to stop any project that we want to do."

 

Quoting Dave Riley? Your're joking right?!

Such tact is akin to asking Senator Bill Frist his opinion on doctor assisted suicide. So what you're saying is that we should put the orchardists out of business just so YOU dunderheads can have a wee bit more snow and, who knows, perhaps a golf course or two in the future.

[PhilomathSloth]

You dont get it...I dont care if Riley gets what he wants or not, I dont care about Meadows, or any golf courses. The problem is, is that no industry that uses any portion of any natural resource can expand without getting roadblocked by environmentalists. What Im saying is, the way for people to address this issue is not via NEPA, but to lobby for in-stream rights. However, applying for instream rights will not affect the Orchardists, as the orchardists have older appropriation dates on the water rights. Thus, during low water years, the orchardists have the rights to the water first. Now I have not researched if this particular river is fully appropriated or not...so this whole conversation is worthless anyways...

[Winter]

Well, I wish I would have seen this earlier. Here's some facts.

 

1. There is no surface water available from the E. Fork. There is an in stream right and apparently it isn't being met much of year. The regs are very clear that there is no water available under the Hood River Basin Plan. Its also quite clear that the groundwater that they want to use is connected to the E. Fork somewhere below Sahalie Falls. So if they use groundwater, they're also taking water out of the E. Fork.

 

2. Snowmaking results in a consumptive loss of 20-75% between evaporation at the gun, sublimation on the snowpack and evaporation before making it back into the surface water. Of course, the Forest Service and Meadows won't tell the public this information. NRCS has done quite a bit of research on this point.

 

3. This proposal does not affect 5 acres nor does it fit within CE 13, which is the one they supposedly wanted to use. The system the FS described in its scoping notice was designed to cover over 1000 acres of terrain with snowmaking. CE 13 is for small installations - not a 1 millions gallon water tank.

 

4. This proposal was not it the 1997 Master Plan that lays out all major capital investments in the ski area. Why have a Master Plan if they can implement projects excluded from that process?

 

Anything else folks want to know (other than why we are so reactionary and unreasonable and why we don't know anything about natural resource management)?

[PhilomathSloth]

Thanks for that info Winter, to bad the river is fully appropriated. I have a couple of questions for ya. Is the research that the NRCS did about the snowmaking available? online perhaps? Do you know who funded their research? I would be interested in taking a look at that.

Also I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more on why you think the project is not a CE? How much land is actually physically being disturbed? Are you basing that on just the amount of water being used and the amount of artificial snow cover, or are you taking about the construciton of the system seperatly? I didnt think that the snow cover would be an enviro impact, maybe the installation of the system....just curious, CE's can get very shady and differ between industries.

Thanks for the input, looking forward to more info, keep us posted as well if you hear of any more happenins.

Edited August 5, 2005 by PhilomathSloth