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More complications for Ski Ashland? Photo by Jim Craven Wednesday's clear weather provided a good view of the Mount Ashland ski area with Mount Shasta in the background. Mount Ashland has planned a new ski run below the bowl at right; environmental group members say the public wasn't informed soon enough that the run is planned for a roadless area. Ski-area plan faces new hurdle `Roadless' missing from 1991 analysis By BETH QUINN ASHLAND -- A new legal hurdle emerged this week for the longstanding proposal to expand Mount Ashland's publicly owned ski resort, and with it two new critics of the plan. In a Jan. 15 invitation for public comment on Ski Ashland's plans for a midmountain lodge, additional chairlift and seven new ski trails, Rogue River National Forest officials revealed that their 1991 environmental analysis and approval of the expansion failed to disclose that development would occur within the 9,446-acre MacDonald Peak roadless area. Sewage plant OK'd Ski Ashland managers got some good news on Wednesday. The U.S. Forest Service's regional office affirmed Ashland District Ranger Linda Duffy's approval of a new wastewater treatment plant for the ski resort. "It's very unglamorous, but it's something that absolutely has to be done," said Ski Ashland general manager Glenn Menzie. The Rogue River National Forest's approval of the proposed $600,000 sewage treatment plant was appealed last year by the Rogue group Sierra Club, which cited various concerns. With administrative appeals exhausted, any further attempts to block the treatment plant must go to federal court. Sierra Club officials weren't available for comment. Menzie said construction would begin in late June. That failure drew immediate protest from two well-known conservation groups and could spark concern in other local, regional and national environmental groups. "It wasn't labeled roadless. The word roadless doesn't appear in that document," said Ashland District Ranger Linda Duffy. "I'm not sure if complicate is the right word. It adds a layer that people weren't aware of, and it brings a discussion today of changing the character of that area." The MacDonald Peak roadless area was inventoried for the Rogue River National Forest's 1990 forest plan but designated for developed recreation rather than wilderness, Duffy said. That's probably why the roadless issue wasn't re-examined in 1991, even though both the National Environmental Policy Act and Forest Service Handbook require it. The Rogue forest's failure to disclose the roadless issue then and in a Jan. 19, 1999, legal notice drew flak this week from Ashland-based Headwaters and the statewide Oregon Natural Resources Council. They joined long-standing expansion critic Rogue Group Sierra Club in asking forest officials to extend the comment period for Ski Ashland's proposed expansion and re-advertise the proposal, specifying the roadless issue in a new legal notice. At this point, Headwaters officials say, their concern is procedural and informational, focused on the need for full disclosure in the required legal notice in the Federal Register. "Environmental groups and people across the country and across the state check that out for things like this," said Tom Dimitre. "It's an important enough issue that it needs to be disclosed." But in the coming weeks the roadless issue could provide expansion critics with a red flag to rally around. "ONRC and I think the vast majority of the conservation community that's dealing with public lands forest issues does not want to see one more acre of roadless area impacted," said Wendell Wood, ONRC's Southern Oregon field representative. A year ago U.S. Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck called an 18-month halt to roadbuilding in roadless areas and is expected in the next few weeks to provide permanent protection for millions of acres. Exempted from the roadbuilding moratorium were national forests in Western Oregon, which Forest Service officials said were adequately protected by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. Environmentalists dispute that and say every acre of remaining roadless forest is essential for ecosystem health. "The roadless areas are what's really holding this system together," Wood said. "The scientific community has explained and acknowledged the ecological importance of these areas. It's been drilled into our heads that this is the area of the forest that it's important to protect." The roadless hurdle adds a new frustration for Ski Ashland managers, who hoped to begin work this summer. "We're only looking at a modest expansion that we've worked on for 15 years," said general manager Glenn Menzie. "It's not development for development's sake. It's not development for profit. It's development to make sure we keep the ski area here." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA