Cumulative Impact, The Final Frontier

Once again the proposed Belleayre Resort’s environmental review is moving forward. Three months ago as we all know, the governor, the project’s developer, NYC’s DEP, and some non-governmental groups agreed to a new plan for what’s now morphed into a 928-room resort. For those keeping score, that’s up from the 762 rooms first proposed in 1999. Now, for the first time, the impact of these plans are going to be evaluated. It’s going to start soon with public meetings December 10 and 11 and move fast.
We like where possible to accentuate the positive and there are to be sure, significant positive messages contained in what’s been released by the state on this in recent weeks. These are reflected in two documents, a “Positive Declaration” of intent to prepare a new draft Environmental Statement, and a Draft Scoping Outline for the new project. The most important change reflected in these is that the Department of Environmental Conservation appears to have finally stopped attempting to circumvent state law by withholding information concerning what’s proposed for the publicly-owned Ski Center from what’s proposed for the privately-owned resort properties. As of now, changes proposed for both will be dealt with as one big interconnected thing which is exactly what they’ve always been, and what some of the parties to the process have long sought. It’s also what The Phoenicia Times has repeatedly called for for nearly seven years, because it’s the only way we’ll ever get any straight answers as to how what’s proposed will actually affect our community.
The heart of what’s different in this review from what’s come before is its focus on Cumulative Impact, the effects of everything now proposed for Belleayre Mountain taken together. Obviously we see this as a very positive development, and the first major change in the process since DEC’s new Commissioner Pete Grannis and his team have come on board. The truth is any cogent reading of SEQRA law requires this approach, and we think it’s great that the state’s finally saying it’s going to start abiding by its own laws in this review. This is a huge shift from the DEC of the Pataki years, in which the agency essentially executed decisions from the Governor’s office with sometimes limited regard for what might be lawful. And it’s particularly important that things are apparently going to be done correctly since for this project, DEC is both the regulator and of course the project’s co-applicant as well.
Why this has finally happened is hard to say. One possible explanation is that DEC’s new senior staff are a lot better than its old ones. Another is that the agency may have learned from its recent experience in the Adirondacks, where a similar private-public co-venture at Gore Mountain, one of Belleayre’s two sister facilities, ran into legal & regulatory problems over a not-too-dissimilar attempt to segregate its private from its public components. But regardless of why now, a proper and unified review will either put to rest or at least properly answer many questions that couldn’t even be asked let alone assessed under the old approach. We’re not suggesting political considerations won’t weigh heavily on current DEC leadership as they have in the past. Clearly the Governor has invested political capital in this new plan, and would like very much like to see things go his and Mr. Gitter’s way. But judging solely from DEC’s newly released work product, it does look like the Governor’s going to let the regulators do their job. Because what they’ve come up with, both the “Positive Dec” and the Scoping Outline, are honest and good documents, drafted in accordance with SEQRA regs requiring a “hard look” at what’s now being proposed.
The new Scoping Outline is basically a table of contents for the Supplemental EIS that Crossroads and DEC need to prepare, and while it’s certainly a good outline, it could stand improvement. There’s no direct provision for instance, for any analysis of the tax implications for residents of its host towns, nor any structural consideration of changes in property values, assessment levels, or their social implications. Also for an agency that’s rapidly defining itself as one of the county’s best informed on the subject of climate change, we’re somewhat surprised to find no provision for reviewing the sobriety of investing $50 or however many million taxpayer dollars in skiing infrastructure. Potentially at least, this might be a bit like the state of Nevada investing in new marina facilities for dried-up Lake Powell. The technical term for that of course would be boondoggle, something one hardly ever hears raised in the current reporting climate. We’re not presuming to judge this, but pretending it’s not a legitimate question surely isn’t the best answer our state government can muster. And no agency in the world seems to be grasping the reality of climate change over the past year better than DEC. The 20 or 30-year snow forecast however suggests that apre-ski activities may soon become a basically historical expression.
These issues - taxes, climate - they’re just a few of many that are worth considering and we trust that many people will have lots of ideas of their own. We have always urged people to believe in and participate in the SEQRA process and encourage everyone, whatever their views, to do so again on December 10 and 11. Last time public hearings were held here, 1200 people came, a state record so far as we can tell, and what they had to say mattered.
One final thought. This project isn’t really about skiing, selling lift tickets is a money-losing proposition at every ski area in the world. What this project is about is big-time real estate development and its impact on our communities and our quality of life. We still favor a reasonably scaled project and hope that most of you do. But we do need to understand what the real costs, the real cumulative impacts are going to be, and whether we can afford them. Every concern is real, every voice counts.
BP