GUEST COLUMN- DARK CLOUDS OVER DONNER SUMMIT

From the Sierra Sun, May 7, 2007

By Sid Cronin

Donner Summit, the archetypal mountain passage to California’s past, present and future, is under siege. The same development dynasty that is responsible for the con­crete embarrassment known as Foster City has presented plans for massive development on the Summit.

In the area where the Donner Party struggled so tragically in search of California’s eternal promise of a better life, developers plan yet another ski resort with more condominium tower units than are currently found at Squaw Valley and Northstar ski resorts combined.

To maximize profit from ski­in/ ski-out lot sales, they plan to clear-cut an estimated 40,000 trees to make room for the lift corridors, ski runs and a huge base area. That area will consist of the typical lodges, commercial centers, high-rise condo units, employee housing, maintenance facilities, roads and parking lots all too common in today’s corporate template of a modern ski resort. All of this for admittedly pathetic downhill ski runs? And this is only phase one.

The developers’ new property contains the true headwaters of the South Yuba River and a primary tributary of the North Fork of the American River. California’s right, indeed all people’s right, to clean water surely must supersede the developers and acquiescent politician’s desire to become ever more wealthy.

The developers had listened to their publicists well; their public presentation was slick and replete with green catch­words of the day. They certainly dressed the part in their blue jeans, “ranger set” belt buckles and plaid work shirts. The only thing that belied their plebeian status were those odd Gucci sunglasses.

In quintessential Orwellian double-speak the developers presented their vision of clear­cuts, concrete and high altitude urban sprawl as a “Conservation Community,” and the commercial ski area buildings and multi-story condominium structures as “Eco­villages.” Not one word was uttered concerning the use of alternative energies that one would expect in a real “eco-village.” At the end of their duplicitous presentation they proclaimed their “love of the Sierra.”

We live in a new paradigm on this planet. The weather is changing, whole species are disappearing and our brothers in far places live increasingly desperate lives.

We have been challenged in the first pages of the Bible to: “… Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and have dominion … over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

As humans we have been fruitful, we certainly have mul­tiplied and we have achieved dominion over every living thing. But the commandment remains unfulfilled. It is now time to “replenish the earth,” and common wisdom dictates that “in order to get it togeth­er, sometimes you’ve got to leave it alone.”

The developers have plenty of money, much of it inherited, and their families are now safe. They are now, blessing or curse, the stewards of 3,000 acres of painfully beautiful, delicately fragile and extremely vulnerable land at the pinnacle of our public watersheds and at the nexus of California history.

If they truly “love the Sierra” as much as they claim, Donner Summit lands will be transferred into parks or conservation trusts, for the enrichment of all Californians. It would be an act that would bring them honor for generations yet to come.