When
Colorado tycoon George Gillett made news in January with another nine-figure
acquisition, residents of Teton Valley, Idaho, squirmed. They've known for years
that Gillett wants to build an exclusive town at the base of the Tetons, just
over the state line from them, and they shudder at the prospect. Wyoming would
get the tax revenue, while rapid growth would overwhelm their communities,
sending costs for homes, sewers, and roads soaring.
That January news item carried a familiar theme. Gillett had just paid $183 million to buy the Montreal Canadiens. At a news conference announcing the deal, he pledged to hockey fans in Canada a "commitment to community."
Over the years Gillett's commitment to community has veered this way and that and his path to great wealth is littered with jettisoned projects. In the late 1960s, he bought a share of the Miami Dolphins. Then he acquired the Harlem Globetrotters. Then a meatpacking firm. Then a chain of television stations. Then ski resorts. Then his holding company couldn't pay off $983 million in junk bonds and Gillett declared bankruptcy in 1992.
Now, where Idaho's rolling farms rise abruptly to one of America's most awesome mountain ranges, Gillett's next business venture threatens to tear a hole in the tapestry of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
"The more I look at this," says wildlife biologist Deb Patla, her voice taut with worry, "the more I see that we're talking about a huge impact to the west slope of the Tetons."
Claiming that its purpose is to help grizzly bears, the Forest Service is recommending a swap of 120 acres of publicly-owned land at the base of the Grand Targhee ski resort, for 400 privately-held acres known as Squirrel Meadows. Additional private land at Squirrel Meadows could still be developed, so the net benefit to grizzlies is questionable.
Meanwhile, the exchange would create a private inholding at the ski resort's base, two and a half miles inside the Targhee National Forest-a place for George Gillett to create a small city of high-priced homes, condos, and stores. GYC's Marv Hoyt points out, "This swap contradicts Forest Service policy over the past ten years to eliminate inholdings wherever possible."
Patla says the "zone of disturbance" will extend from the top of the ski hill through a mushrooming village into a conifer forest where once primitive roads will carry increasing volumes of traffic to the resort. She says wildlife ranging from bears to wolverines to bighorn sheep will suffer.
But wildlife impacts are only one part of the controversy. A broad mix of old timers and newcomers including ranchers, contractors, small business owners, and conservation groups has blasted the Forest Service for twisting scientific and economic data in order to justify a land exchange that will clearly benefit Gillett, but no one else.
They point out:
The public would be cheated financially. A Forest Service appraiser valued the land that Gillett would acquire at Grand Targhee's base at only $28,000 per acre. At other Wyoming ski resorts, undeveloped lots, smaller than an acre, are selling for 15 to 50 times that much.
The deal smacks of being pre-ordained. Nearly four years ago, before citizens could attend public meetings or submit written comments, Targhee Forest Supervisor Jerry Reese told the Jackson Hole News: "I think this exchange is a win-win situation," and "the Forest Service has decided that a land swap is the only solution."
The Forest Service has ignored the fact that resorts nationally are having a difficult time filling their chairlifts. As the Denver Post observed this winter, "At some point, citizens should wonder why the Forest Service continues to approve expansion of a relatively high-impact industry, when public participation in other, less intrusive winter sports, like snowshoeing, have been growing at a much faster rate."
GYC, Citizens for Teton Valley, the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, and seven other conservation groups, filed a 105-page appeal urging that the exchange be shelved. Last year, the investigative arm of Congress issued a stinging criticism of the Forest Service for approving land exchanges that dumped publicly-owned land at below-market values. Grand Targhee represents a failure to reform that broken system.