[Council Communication]  [Public Comments]

Council Communication

Title:	Discussion and recommendations regarding Mount Ashland Draft Environmental Impact Statement
Dept:	Administration
Date:	October 7, 2003
Submitted By:	Gino Grimaldi, City Administrator
Approved By: ...........................	Gino Grimaldi, City Administrator

Synopsis:	The Forest Service has released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Mt. Ashland Ski Area Expansion. The DEIS is available for a 90-day comment period that began on July 25, 2003. The Mayor and City Council have directed staff to review the DEIS with a focus on four areas: water quality, water quantity, fire and financial risk. The results of the review were presented at a study session of September 22, 2003. A public input session was held on September 30, 2003. Staff is seeking Council discussion and direction regarding the proposed DEIS comments (Attachment 1) and other recommendations (Attachment 2).
Recommendation:	It is recommended that the comments and recommendations be forwarded to the Forest Service as comments to the DEIS and that staff be directed to proceed with implementing several recommendations that are not part of the DEIS.
Fiscal Impact:
Background:	The proposed comments and recommendations, if implemented, are designed to provide reasonable assurance that the expansion of the Mt. Ashland Ski Area will not have a significant measurable impact on water quality and quantity. In addition, should Mt. Ashland cease to operate, the comments and recommendations are designed to provide reasonable assurance that the financial condition of the city is not negatively impacted. A recommendation has been made that buildings constructed as part of the expansion should take into consideration the need for fire protection features within the buildings to prevent the potential for building fires spreading into adjacent wildland resources. Several questions regarding fire risk were raised at the study session. Attachment 3 addresses those issues. The deadline for filing comments with the Forest Service is October 23, 2003. As a result, should the Council require additional information regarding the impact of the proposed expansion or if the discussion of the comments and recommendations cannot be completed at this meeting, the October 21st meeting is available for a continuation of the discussion. Attachment 4 contains the comments received from the community as of October 1, 2003 regarding the proposed expansion as well as written material submitted during the public input session.
Attachments:	Attachments: Attachment 1 - Proposed DEIS comments Attachment 2 - Other Recommendations Attachment 3 - Analysis of potential wildfire threat Attachment 4 - Comments received during Public Input session and from the community. These documents are available in PDF format.  To view the documents on your computer, please click on the link below.  the Adobe reader program will open in a new browser window.  Please use the browser's "Zoom" feature to adjust the size of text for comfortable reading.

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DEIS_Public_Comments.pdf (10620KB)

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