Friends of Mount Hood (FOMH), represented by attorney Karl G. Anuta, led the challenge to the USFS approval of the 1997 Master Plan for the Meadows Ski Area. Seven other environmental groups joined in the litigation: American Lands Alliance, Hood River Valley Residents Committee, Mazamas, Northwest Environmental Defense Center, Oregon Natural Resources Council, Portland Audubon Society, Sierra Club Columbia Group Forest Committee.

The following material is from a summary of the litigation that Karl G. Anuta prepared after a federal court ruling in May, 2001.

2001 Summary

As most of you will recall, one of the galvanizing forces for the creation of Friends of Mount Hood was the outrageous 1988 Master Plan expansion proposal by Mount Hood Meadows (MHM). We successfully challenged the 1991 U.S. Forest Service (USFS) approval of that wildly excessive Master Plan. Consequently, the USFS and Meadows had to go back and reconsider.

In 1997, the USFS and Meadows came out with a smaller, but still excessive Master Plan. This Plan was what FOMH and the other groups sued over.

We filed suit on the 1997 Plan, challenging not only the Plan's compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), but also compliance with a number of other federal laws. These included claims under the Clean Water Act against both the USFS and Meadows, and a challenge to the Master Plan as inconsistent with the National Forest Management Act (NFMA).

The NFMA challenge was dismissed by the court as not ready for decision making, based on a US Supreme Court ruling that came out after we filed the case. That new decision states that challenges for failure to comply with NFMA must wait until the plan at issue is being implemented.

The Clean Water Act claims were settled in February, 2000, with a federal court Consent Order. In that record breaking settlement, Meadows agreed to undertake wetland restoration to compensate for some of their past destructive activities and to be bound to a new, more rigorous process for determining wetland impacts before conducting any construction activities.

The NEPA and other Master Plan challenges were extensively briefed by all sides. Oral argument was held before Judge Garr King in early September, 2000. On December 15, 2000, the court issued a 27 page ruling, finding in our favor on two important NEPA issues.

The court held that the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) documents approving the Mount Hood Meadows 1997 Master Plan were legally inadequate. The court also held that we can still pursue a number of our challenges to the illegality of the Master Plan under NFMA, once the USFS issues site-specific decision documents implementing the Master Plan. In addition, the court invited additional briefing on why the approval of the 1997 Master Plan was potentially arbitrary and capricious.

Judge King found that the EIS documents written by the USFS and Meadows failed to adequately assess all reasonable alternatives. The court agreed with us that all of the alternatives analyzed in the EIS documents assumed a large increase in parking should be approved, and that the off-mountain parking alternative we proposed in 1996 was a reasonable alternative that should be given a "hard look". The court held, as many courts have previously, that the existence of a "viable but unexamined alternative renders the EIS inadequate".

The court also ruled in December that the Amendment to the Mount Hood Forest Plan, which was approved by the USFS in conjunction with the Master Plan, was unlawful. The court held that the reclassification of 96 acres of public land, changing it from Wildlife/Visual (B-9) to Winter Recreation (A-11) land use designation, was unlawful. The agency failed to include a "hard look" at the wildlife impacts of this reclassification. Unfortunately, this conclusion was later withdrawn.

We had hoped for an injunction against implementation of the entire Master Plan. However, a May 16, 2001 court ruling established several salient points.

1. The court does not enjoin the implementation of the entire Master Plan. Instead, the court severs the parking issue and remands that portion of the Record of Decision (ROD) which deals with parking. The federal defendants and Mount Hood Meadows are not enjoined from proceeding with any other elements of the Master Plan approved by the 1997 ROD.
2. The court enjoins the federal defendants and Mount Hood Meadows from proceeding with any project at the ski area which has a direct material effect on parking facilities or increases presently approved parking.
3. The USFS shall prepare and submit to the court a Supplemental Information Report (SIR) to address whether an off-site parking alternative deserves further consideration during the NEPA process.

MHM and the plaintiffs will have an opportunity to respond to the SIR -- and the process continues.

As stated above, we can also pursue a number of our challenges under the NFMA once the USFS issues site-specific documents.

The following updates were prepared by FOMH board members.

Update (March 2004)

The first major project proposed by Meadows under the 1997 Master Plan is the construction of a new chair lift. Information on the concerns of FOMH over the environmental impacts from this project is available at   Lift 21.

Update (January 2006)

In December of 2002, the Forest Service and Mt. Hood Meadows presented a Draft Supplemental Information Report (DRAFT SIR). This was in response to Judge King's order instructing the Forest Service to determine whether an off-site parking alternative deserves further consideration during the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process for a Master Plan.

Sadly just as we expected, the DRAFT SIR put forward by the Forest Service concluded that an off-site parking alternative is not a viable option and, therefore, does not warrant further analysis. Chris Winter and Ralph Bloemers of Cascade Resources Advocacy Group (CRAG), with assistance from Karl G. Anuta, provided comments to the defendants on the inadequacy of the Draft SIR for FOMH and the other plaintiffs to the lawsuit over the 1997 Master Plan.

On May 23, 2005, the Forest Service filed the Supplemental Information Report (SIR) that had been ordered by the Court in May, 2001. Oral arguments were held before Judge Garr King on June 22, 2005. Chris Winter represented the plaintiffs at the hearing.

In the SIR the Forest Service concluded that it did nothing wrong, before issuing the 1997 Record of Decision for the new Master Plan, when it failed to consider the possibility of accommodating future growth at Mt. Hood Meadows with off-site parking as an alternative during the NEPA process . At the hearing the Forest Service's main argument in justifiying it's position was that an off-site parking alternative is not economically viable. We objected to several critical assumptions that were arbitrarly used by the Forest Service in reaching this conclusion, and argued that the Forest Service failed to consider any of the benefits that would result from an off-site parking alternative.

The Clean Water Act (CWA) settlement involved several major issues. Two of those are: mitigation for destroyed wetlands within the Meadows ski permit area, and stormwater controls at the main parking lot and the Hood River Meadows parking lot. Another CWA settlement result was a precedent setting requirement that Meadows apply for CWA Section 401 Water Quality Compliance Certification from the State of Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

Meadows agreed to two separate wetland mitigation projects in the CWA settlement. Work has begun on one of the projects, a wetland restoration of approximately 1500 square feet at the base of the Blue Chair.

The other wetland project is not yet fully agreed upon. Under the settlement this second project must include 1.5 acres of wetland restoration. The project is still being studied and discussed. Dr David Cooper, the high alpine wetland specialist who has been selected by Friends of Mount Hood to consult with Meadows and the Forest Service on wetland restoration, has suggested that the area between the base of the Blue and Mt. Hood Express lifts is a possible location for restoration. This is an area where the original wetlands were destroyed by fill material and the placement of streams in culverts. Meadows is cooperating with Dr. Cooper in monitoring test wells in the area to study the movement and quantity of ground water in order to determine if wetland mitigation is feasible at this location.

As part of the Clean Water Act (CWA) settlement, Mt. Hood Meadows (MHM) was required to install a stormwater control system at the main parking lot in order to prevent further impacts on the East Fork of Hood River and adjacent wetlands due to snow removal and water run-off from the parking lot. The main impacts are:

• siltation of the East Fork due to erosion along the bank between the river and the parking lot;
• gravel accumulation in wetlands near the East Fork and the parking lot due to snow removal from the parking lot;
• petroleum contamination in the water run-off from the main parking lot due to the operation of ski area machinery in addition to cars and buses using the parking lot.

At the end of a three year period, MHM is required to submit a report on the effectiveness of the stormwater control system, and the plaintiffs will have an opportunity to address issues in the design of the system that need to be corrected.