Why you should be scared of Alta

**Grange** · 05-21-2009, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by David Witherspoon

I'd be glad to hear your opinion on it, then.

As far as I can tell, the term is a recent invention of the local USFS - first time I (or any of the NEPA lawyers I've worked with) heard of it was in the Ogden Ranger District's defense of their process for expanding Snowbasin's permit area to allow guiding outside the lift-served area. More about that here.

But the SLRD has been scoping all their low-impact, restricted-area, almost certainly Categorically-Excludable actions bundled in the same sort of annual or quarterly letter for years now. A search turns up a 2003 scoping for "Small NEPA Projects" in the Kamas District. Sounds like an internal, informal term has slowly graduated to public use, but is still referring to the same old group of actions deemed so trivial as to be CatEx-able after minimal internal review and a mere announcement rather than more active scoping.

What's a "term environmental report"?

Thanks for info. I'll have to keep my ears open for that term around here. Though it sounds like it's just a way for the USFS to cover their butts so if they were called out on a project they could produce an environmental document.

The term is "environmental report". In WI the Wisconsin Department of Transportation uses an enviromental report on smaller scale projects to comply with NEPA. The WI Department of Natural Resources will sometimes use generic or previously certified EA's to comply with the States' version of NEPA, WEPA, on smaller scale or often repeated projects.

**Badekoo** · 05-21-2009, 12:48 PM

So by the sound of the Salt Lake Ranger District memo a few post prior, Alta plans to update their artillery for avy control. Does this mean the lift is off-the-table?

**Nathan Explosion** · 05-21-2009, 02:08 PM

Why don't they just hollow it out like Yucca Mountain and fill it full of nuclear waste. That should keep the snow off of it, and also create hyper intelligent moose who could operate the lifts through the winter.

Whaddya say Witherspoon?