Comment period extended for TSV resort developments
After receiving feedback from community stakeholders, Questa District Ranger Adam LaDell announced last week that the Carson National Forest will initiate a second comment period for the draft Environmental Assessment for resort projects proposed by Taos Ski Valley, Inc.
The current comment period was slated to end April 9; the new comment period will extend until May 15.
“The team has been listening to the community and agrees that more time to understand the proposal and make substantive comments will be extremely helpful,” LaDell said in a press release. “To that end, we’ll also host another public meeting in the Taos area.”
Details for the second public meeting will be announced at a later date.
Sylvia Rodriguez, secretary for the Acequia de San Antonio, which relies on water diverted from the Rio Hondo in Valdez, downstream from the ski valley, was among those who asked for more time
— 60 days — to study the Environmental Assessment.
“’The Taos Ski Valley Gondola and Other Improvements’ proposes a wide variety of changes to the ski valley,” the acequia leadership wrote in a letter submitted to the online comment portal for the project. “These proposed changes may have many different impacts that affect a variety of resources of interest to the Acequia de San Antonio, especially the Rio Hondo. The result is a complex matrix of potential impacts to our acequia and our community.
“Frankly, the Acequia de San Antonio does not have many resources with which to analyze the proposed, potentially complex changes,” the group added in its letter. “Given additional time, the Acequia de San Antonio can organize resources to better allow us to understand the proposed changes and meaningfully participate in the process.”
After the Village of Taos Ski Valley announced it was in the midst of another water crisis over the weekend, Rodriguez told the Taos News that the Acequia de San Antonio is in the process of composing letters to the Carson National Forest, Taos Ski Valley, Inc., Village of Taos Ski Valley and the Taos County Commission requesting “a moratorium on all development until these longstanding and increasingly serious water infrastructure problems are resolved.”
During Village of Taos Ski Valley meetings over the past couple of months, several ski valley residents have also bandied about the idea of a moratorium on development; however, representatives from the ski corporation have indicated that the current municipal water infrastructure problems aren’t reason enough to hold off on its latest major development. The Hotel St. Bernard rebuild will break ground this spring, despite the village stipulating that there is no guarantee of water for the project.
Paula Garcia, executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Association, was among those who raised environmental justice issues during the original comment period for the gondola and other developments last spring.
In requesting that the Carson undertake a more detailed environmental impact statement, Garcia said the New Mexico Acequia Association was concerned that the ski valley resort developments would have “reasonably foreseeable, harmful and significant negative impacts” on “acequias, the community, the Rio Hondo Watershed and the Taos Valley, which must be addressed in a robust environmental impact statement rather than through a brief and insufficient environmental assessment.”
The draft Environmental Assessment, which was released in January, addressed those issues, as well as concerns regarding water use affiliated with a new water storage tank and snowmaking infrastructure.
“The proposed projects would not directly impact the acequias, Taos Pueblo, or other downstream water users,” the draft EA states. “The proposed projects would not increase TSV water rights and would not increase the current water uptake from the Rio Hondo. TSV currently utilizes its complete diversionary right for 200 acre-feet and would continue to do so under the proposed action. There are no long-term impacts to water quality anticipated. Short-term impacts in the form of increased sediment transport to the acequias, and minimal erosion have the potential to occur; however, project design criteria would be included to avoid short-term impacts to water quality that could occur from construction.
“As the proposed action would have no effect on the water quantity being drawn from the Rio Hondo and impacts to water quality are being addressed through project design criteria, there would be no disproportionate impacts to downstream communities that may include low-income populations or people of a particular ethnic or cultural heritage,” the draft EA states.
The draft Environmental Assessment examines authorizing the following projects:
• Construction of a gondola to connect the main base of the resort to the Kachina base.
• Replace Lift 2 and Lift 8.
• Install a new booster station, water tank and additional snowmaking pipe.
• Develop Nordic and snowshoe trails.
• Build a restaurant near the top of Lift 7.
• Replace and relocate the Whistlestop Café.
• Construct a Lift 4 hiking trail.
• Create construction and staging areas.
The full list of proposed projects and their details can be read in the draft analysis and supporting documents, which are available at fs.usda.gov/project/?project=61390 and at the Supervisor’s Office in Taos for public inspection.
Mailed written comments should be addressed to Forest Supervisor James Duran, c/o Paul Schilke, winter sports coordinator, P.O. Box 110 Questa, NM 87556; to hand deliver comments, call 575-586-0520, to schedule a hand-delivery of comments to the Questa District Ranger Station at 184 NM 38, just east of Eagle Rock Lake in Questa. Comments can also be submitted by fax to 575586-2010.