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Poles apart Photo by Bob Penell Ski Ashland's operations supervisor Bruce Meek launches into the ski bowl. The snowy area to the upper right, near the treeline and over the hill, is the proposed site for the resort to expand skiing opportunities. Ski Ashland expansion plans put environmentalists in an odd place -- opposite sides BY PAUL FATTIG ASHLAND -- If Ron Roth were a country, he could be Bosnia. Indeed, the Ashland resident knows what it's like to be pulled from every side: He is a longtime Rogue Group Sierra Club member, and on the executive boards of both Headwaters and Ski Ashland. Local Sierra Club leaders have come out adamantly against the controversial proposal to expand Ski Ashland whose board is solidly supporting it. And Headwaters, the Ashland-based coalition of environmental groups, seeks more answers to many questions before taking an official position. "It's not easy -- my position is very unique," observed Roth, an expansion supporter. "Ski Ashland doesn't want to trash the environment anymore than Headwaters wants to trash the public's right to ski in a national forest. "Yes, these are very interesting times we live in," he concluded. While Roth's position is unusual, it reflects a small but very real conflict as environmentalists take sides in the sometimes heated debate over expanding recreation activities in the deep snow atop Mount Ashland. That doesn't mean a civil war is about to break out within the environmental community, cautioned Charlotte Holzkamper, chair of the Rogue Group Sierra Club. "There are no evil monsters here," she said of those taking opposing sides on the issue. "And I'm sure every skier believes he or she is an environmentalist." "Absolutely -- there is no question about that," observed expansion opponent Tom Rose, an avid skier and member of the club's executive committee. Chris Bratt, a Headwaters board member who has been in the trenches of environmental battles for two decades, says the differences of opinions among environmentalists merely reflect growing pains within the movement. "There are people on both sides of the issue -- no question about it," he said. "One of the problems is that the conservation community has never really dealt with the industrial side of recreation like ski expansions. We're just starting to separate it all out." Noting that many environmentalists are involved in winter recreation, the issue has caused lively discussions, he said. "But there is nothing wrong with that," he said. "It's healthy for us." To that, Jeff Hanson, a member of The Nature Conservancy and Friends of the Greensprings environmental groups, would agree. The lapsed Sierra Club member is the assistant manager of Ski Ashland. He also agrees with Holzkamper that there are no ogres on either side of the debate. "One of the beauties of living in Southern Oregon is that there is a wide variety of opinions," Hanson said. "Even those who are strong supporters of the expansion have suggestions on how we could do things better. Environmentalists have a lot of different views on this." His views are that the proposed changes are acceptable from an environmental perspective. "I do feel we've bent over backwards to do a good environmental job from the very beginning," he said. "What you have is a small ski area that needs some improvement to be viable for the future. There will be some minor impacts because of that." The environmental clash can be seen in the roughly 350 letters the Ashland Ranger District has received over the proposal. About eight or nine of the 95 percent in support are from local Sierra Club members, said Steve Johnson, co-leader of the Forest Service's interdisciplinary team studying the Ski Ashland proposal. "The environmental community is not as unified as they usually are when it's a controversial timber sale or something like that,'' he said. "I'm not sure why that is," he added. "It could be that it's a little more of a `white hat' issue when it comes to Ski Ashland." However, the preponderance of letters in support of the community-owned ski area are not an indicator that it will ultimately be approved, he said. The proposal has to pass environmental laws, he added. That's a point the environmental community would do well to remember when it takes a stance against popular opinion, Holzkamper said. "Just because we have a lot of people running around waving their arms and saying, `We want it! We want it!' that doesn't mean it's legal or that it's going to happen," she said. The issue isn't so much what the group is against, but what it's for, she said. "We're for the ecosystem, for the watershed, for the forest," she said, adding the group is also for continued use of skiing on Mount Ashland, albeit not for the expansion. "We're not the bad guys nor are they," she said of Ski Ashland. "Nor is the Forest Service. Everyone is trying to do what they think is best. "But we believe there are some very real environmental concerns here," she added. Those concerns include expanding the ski area into a roadless area that provide habitat for sensitive plants and animals, opponents say. Another major concern is the wetlands created by the east fork of Ashland Creek which flows into Reeder Reservoir, the source of the city's water supply, Holzkamper said, adding that sewage from the expanded ski area could end up in the watershed. John Sully, a member of the club's executive committee and a retired biologist, has found fish in the upper reaches of the stream. "There have been a number of studies in the past whose final resolution was that the ski area should not be expanded because of hazard to the watershed," Sully said, noting those studies indicated that 60 percent of the siltation in the reservoir originated from the existing ski area or the roads in the watershed. Fellow executive committee member Tom Rose agreed that environmental concerns outweigh possible benefits. "Ski Ashland has been doing basically the same thing for the last 30 years and they want something new," he said. "The ski industry in general feels they have to compete with each other." But Rose, who has also done a lot of volunteer work at Ski Ashland, believes the expansion plans cannot be justified. "And that's after years of skiing up there," he said. While acknowledging there are some within the environmental community who support the expansion, Holzkamper believes most oppose it. Numerous environmental groups such as the Oregon Natural Resources Council and the Siskiyou Regional Education Project have rejected the expansion plans, she said, adding that nearly ten now back the local club's position. Moreover, she intends to ask the state Sierra Club with its 13,000 members to join in the opposition. "We intend to step up the campaign," she said. "We are going to throw everything we've got at this. "We haven't canvassed our (1,300) members but we haven't lost any great numbers," she added. "If we lose ten, we gain ten. We're holding our own on this one." One member who just renewed his longtime membership is Ron Roth. While he may not agree with the local club's leadership stance on the expansion issue, he doesn't question its motives. Noting that he was speaking as a private citizen and not a member of any board, Roth stressed that it's not a black and white issue. "But I'm supportive of the expansion," he said. "There are certain aspects of the project that has to be there, like the ski lift and the main run. "And there are a lot of details, like the wetlands, that need to be looked at," he added. "I just believe we can do this expansion in an environmentally sensitive manner." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA