WOC to Challenge Grand Targhee Land Exchange

by Kelly Matheson

Over the past decade, hundreds of citizens, local and national environmental groups and the Forest Service itself have argued that the creation of a private inholding on national forest lands at the base of Grand Targhee Ski and Summer Resort is not in the public interest. Yet, for the fourth time in 12 years, we find ourselves challenging a land exchange which does exactly that.

Just in time for the holidays, the Forest Service released its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) and Record of Decision (ROD) for the Squirrel Meadows/ Grand Targhee Land Exchange. The decision approves the exchange of 120 acres of Targhee National Forest land at the base of the resort for 400 acres of privately owned land at Squirrel Meadows, an expansive wetland system five miles south of Yellowstone National Park near the Winegar Hole Wilderness.

The decision flies in the face of current Forest Service policy to phase out private inholdings and gives resort owners a multi-million dollar windfall, leaving the public to pick up the tab. Grand Targhee will now be free to sell and develop parcels of this newly privatized land for condos and second homes.

The Forest Service argues that the exchange is a good financial deal for the public, claiming the value of the land to be gained exceeds the value of the land to be traded. According to the agency, the land at the base of the resort is valued at $28,000 per acre. By comparison, in the town of Alta, just down the road from Grand Targhee, five-acre home sites are priced from $250,000 to $600,000 (or $50,000 to $120,000 per acre) and land at the base of the Teton Village Ski Resort sells for well over $700,000 an acre.

The agency has also repeatedly assured the public that its primary purpose is to protect important grizzly bear habitat at Squirrel Meadows. However, the ski area itself is important habitat for grizzly bears and a host of rare and sensitive species like wolverines, the threatened lynx and great grey owls. The road to the resort passes through elk winter range, and if the base of the ski hill becomes private property, high-density development will be the predictable outcome, effectively eliminating wildlife habitat.

WOC and other conservation groups will challenge the Forest Service's decision, documenting the Targhee National Forest's continued pattern of biased decision-making, the negative impacts of the exchange on wildlife and the forest's unwillingness to pursue alternative methods to acquire Squirrel Meadows.

Perhaps most importantly, our appeal will challenge the Forest Service's valuation of the lands to be exchanged. When nearby town lots without Grand Targhee's ski-in, ski-out access are selling for far higher prices and similar parcels in neighboring resorts are going for hundreds of thousands of dollars per acre, the Targhee National Forest appears to be acting as an agent for the resort rather than an agency charged with serving the public interest. S

To view a copy of the final Environmental Impact Statement for the Squirrel Meadows/Grand Targhee Land Exchange Proposal, go to: www.fs.fed.us/tnf