Agreement Reached For The Base-To-Base Gondola At Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows
Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows, California has reached an agreement with Granite Chief Wilderness Protection League to dismiss the League's lawsuit against the approval of the Squaw Alpine Base-to-Base Gondola. This agreement details protection measures for the Sierra Nevada Yellow-Legged Frog and the surrounding Granite Chief Wildnerness Area.
The agreement will ensure the conservation of potential habit for the Sierra Nevada Yellow-Legged Frog, as well as providing funds for its monitoring, research, and potential reestablishment. This includes funding for the conservation of lands within the Congressionally mapped boundaries of the Granite Chief Wilderness Area. Part of the agreement also places operational limits on the gondola operations to mitigate impacts on this area.
The agreement also includes the following:
- The League agreed to dismiss its lawsuit against the Squaw Alpine Base-to-Base Gondola.
- Squaw Alpine agreed to conserve approximately 27 acres of the resort’s private property. These lands, which include pristine wetlands and deep natural ponds, have the potential to serve as habitat for the endangered Sierra Nevada Yellow-Legged Frog.
- Squaw Alpine agreed to provide funding for the study and potential restoration of the Sierra Nevada Yellow-Legged Frog, which was once one of the most abundant amphibian species in California but has since neared extinction in the state due to habitat loss, fish introduction, climate change, and disease.
- Squaw Alpine agreed to provide separate funding, to be held in trust by the Truckee Donner Land Trust, for the acquisition of private holdings within the Granite Chief Wilderness Area and high resource value lands and/or conservation easements. Land eligible for purchase with the funds includes the area within and adjacent to the Granite Chief Wilderness.
- Squaw Alpine also agreed to operational limits for the gondola designed to mitigate potential noise, visual, and other impacts to the nearby Granite Chief Wilderness. This includes signage and strict enforcement of the ski area boundary at the KT-22 mid-station, and an annual gondola closing date of no later than April 30. The gondola will operate during the winter season only, when both Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows are in operation or will stop operations by April 30th.
"As a high-value Sierra wilderness area, the Granite Chief Wilderness needs ever more safeguards to ensure we leave such wild treasures for future generations,” stated Daniel Heagerty, director of the League. “Squaw Alpine has made significant and greatly appreciated commitments to minimize wilderness impacts and invest in important endangered species conservation efforts. We are very pleased with the Agreement we reached with Squaw Alpine."
Though the approval for the construction of the new gondola was given this past fall, with the lawsuit being filed at roughly the same time, the new agreement was reached this past November. “We are very happy to have worked collaboratively with the League to address their concerns so that resources could be directed to environmentally beneficial purposes, rather than funding an extended lawsuit,” said Ron Cohen, president, and chief operating officer of Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows. “We are eager to get going on this game-changing transportation project. We thank the League for its productive approach to resolving the dispute.”
Photo Credit: Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows/FB
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