[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 152 (Thursday, November 12, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2311-E2312]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            VAIL, CO, ARSON

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. DON YOUNG

                               of alaska

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 12, 1998

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I submit three recent newspaper 
articles concerning issues surrounding the mysterious fires in Vail, 
CO, to be included in the Congressional Record and recommend that my 
colleagues read them.

              [From the Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 21, 1998]

                  Romer Tabs Resort Fires As Terrorism

       Vail, Colo.--Seven separate fires that destroyed a ski 
     lodge and other buildings at 11,000 feet were an ``act of 
     terrorism,'' Gov. Roy Romer said Tuesday as workers resumed 
     an expansion project at the Vail Mountain resort.
       ``I know that mountain quite well, and it's inconceivable 
     some natural occurrence would cause simultaneous fires on 
     that ridge,'' Romer said at a news conference in Denver, 100 
     miles to the east of Vail.
       The fires broke out early Monday and caused an estimated 
     $12 million in damage, destroying the luxurious Two Elk 
     restaurant, the Ski Patrol headquarters, a picnic spot and 
     four chairlifts.
       The fires came after the Rocky Mountain resort on Friday 
     began an 885-acre expansion project that wildlife groups say 
     will make the area uninhabitable for endangered lynx. Cross-
     country skiers say the project will limit access. The groups 
     have denied any involvement.
       State and federal agents were investigating the fires, 
     which burned independent of each other. Two of the buildings 
     destroyed were more than a mile apart.
       Vail officials said the nation's busiest ski area would 
     open as planned on Nov. 6.
       If the fires are linked to Vail's expansion, they would 
     rank among the worst acts of eco-terrorism in the past 
     decade, said Ron Arnold, executive vice president of the 
     Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, a Bellevue, Wash., 
     group that tracks ecological crimes.


     
                                  ____
                [From the New York Times, Oct. 22, 1998]

              Group Says Vail Fires Were in Behalf of Lynx

                           (By James Brooke)

       DENVER.--The Earth Liberation Front, a shadowy group that 
     has taken responsibility for a series of arson fires in the 
     Northwest, declared in an e-mail communique Wednesday that 
     the fires atop Vail mountain on Monday were carried out ``on 
     behalf of the lynx.''
       ``Putting profits ahead of Colorado's wildlife will not be 
     tolerated,'' read the brief statement, which was sent 
     electronically to several Colorado news organizations. ``We 
     will be back if this greedy corporation continues to trespass 
     into wild and unroaded areas.''
       The seven fires caused about $12 million worth of damage to 
     buildings and chair lifts along a 11,200-foot-high ridge that 
     overlooks a National Forest area where the Vail ski area 
     started clearing trees on Friday as part of a controversial 
     expansion. Earlier this year, environmentalists, back country 
     skiers and many residents of Eagle County had spoken out at 
     public meetings to block Vail's plan to expand into an area 
     seen as potential habitat for the reintroduction of the lynx 
     in the Colorado Rockies.
       Vail, which plans to open for skiing on Nov. 6, is the 
     nation's busiest ski area, selling 1.6 million lift tickets 
     last winter.
       Addressing the nation's skiers, the communique warned: 
     ``For your safety and convenience, we strongly advise skiers 
     to choose other destinations until Vail cancels its 
     inexcusable plans for expansion.''
       Wednesday evening in Vail, the Eagle County sheriff's 
     office said after receiving the two-paragraph statement by 
     fax: ``Currently investigators are reviewing the origin and 
     the content for credibility and will continue its 
     investigation using this communique as a source for 
     information.''
       A Vail Resorts spokesman did not return telephone calls for 
     comment. Although the fires here appear to be in response to 
     a local dispute, security was tightened this week at other 
     ski areas around Colorado, the nation's most popular skiing 
     state.
       Barry Clausen, a Northern California researcher who studies 
     terrorist acts claimed by environmental extremists, said 
     Wednesday that the Earth Liberation Front has taken credit 
     for most of the arson fires linked to environmental protests.
       He said the language in Wednesday's communique ``is almost 
     identical to other letters the ELF has sent to other victims 
     of arson fires.''
       Over the last two years, Clausen said, the Earth Liberation 
     Front has taken credit for five arsons against federal 
     government buildings in Oregon and Washington state.
       ``We are seeing a decline in small acts of sabotage, 
     against timber and mining, and an escalation of large acts of 
     terrorism,'' Clausen said from his office in Eureka.
       Noting that an article criticizing Vail's expansion plans 
     appeared in the May-June issue of Earth First Journal, 
     Clausen said: ``It's a real pattern. Many times articles come 
     out in the Journal. Then, there is sabotage.''
       The article, headlined ``Super Vail . . . Super Ugly!'' 
     charged that Vail wanted to ``bring the resort lifestyle into 
     some of the last, best old-growth habitat for lynx in the 
     southern Rockies.'' But the author, Ben Doon, did not 
     advocate violence. Citing legal efforts to stop the 
     expansion, Doon urged readers to contact Ancient Forest 
     Rescue, an environmental group.
       In interview in Vail on Tuesday, Jeff Berman, the local 
     representative of Ancient Forest Rescue, appeared depressed 
     by the fires, deserving them as a setback in his battle for 
     public opinion. He asked: ``Does this help us? Of course 
     not.''
       Wednesday, Theresa Kintz, editor of the Earth First 
     Journal, said after reading the communique: ``It is entirely 
     possible that it was an ELF action.''
       ``Personally, I don't have a problem with hitting people 
     like Vail Inc. in their pockets,'' said Ms. Kintz, who 
     dedicates a page of news, headlined ``Earth Night,'' to 
     sabotage actions claimed by the Earth Liberation Front. ``I 
     don't have a problem with seeing their facilities burn down. 
     It's a war.''
       ``Monkey wrenching and eco-sabotage are strategies that 
     some people feel are justified in some circumstances,'' she 
     continued, using Earth First! jargon for sabotaging 
     machinery. Noting that arson was a new step, she added: 
     ``Classic eco-sabotage would be monkey wrenching 
     bulldozers.''
       In its November 1990 edition, the Earth First Journal 
     published a photograph of a bulldozer apparently sabotaged by 
     militants opposed to a ski area expansion near Pagosa 
     Springs, Colo., the only other recent case of environmental 
     terrorism against a Colorado ski area.


     
                                  ____
               [From the Washington Times, Oct. 27, 1998]

              Radical Environmentalists Take New Approach

                           (By Robert Weller)

       Vail, Colo.--Mining and logging, the industries that helped 
     build the West, used to

[[Page E2312]]

     be favorite targets of environmental extremists. Now they are 
     taking aim at something else--tourism.
       Targeting so-called ``industrial tourism,'' the Earth 
     Liberation Front admitted setting fires last week that caused 
     more than $12 million in damage at Vail, the nation's busiest 
     ski resort. The goal was to halt another expansion because of 
     fears it could harm a potential habitat for the lynx, a 
     threatened species of mountain cat.
       The mainstream environmental movement denounced the arson, 
     but some are surprised such an attack didn't happen sooner.
       ``I know in my heart there has been an environmental time 
     bomb waiting to go off in Vail and other ski areas for a long 
     time,'' said environmental writer J.D. Braselton.
       The ski areas have also come under attack for creating a 
     widening economic gap between the haves and have-nots near 
     resort towns.
       ``A classic story in Telluride is of two people who came 
     here to build trophy homes. And they built them on mesas 
     facing each other. Each then filed suit against the other 
     because they didn't want to see another home,'' said Peter 
     Spencer, a former mayor in Telluride, in southwest Colorado.
       Such trophy homes ultimately lead to skyrocketing property 
     values, which force the working population to move to less 
     desirable areas and commute many miles over snow-covered 
     mountain passes.
       ``We lose employees on a regular basis to jobs down valley, 
     where they live,'' said Bob McLaurin, Vail town manager.
       He worries that someday there won't be anybody available to 
     answer police or fire calls, or serve tourists in 
     restaurants.
       Friends say Edward Abbey, author of the book ``The Monkey 
     Wrench Gang,'' a fictionalized account of his guerrilla-style 
     attacks on mining and dam-building, would turn over in his 
     grave if he could see the effects of the tourism that 
     replaced them.
       ``There will be more [negative] impact through tourism than 
     all the mining, logging and ranching combined,'' said Ken 
     Sleight, a Moab, Utah, outfitter who served as the model for 
     the outfitter ``Seldom Seen Smith'' in Mr. Abbey's book, 
     which is considered a major force in launching the 
     environmental movement in the Southwest.
       Dan Kitchen, an Aspen environmentalist once convicted of 
     cutting down a fence a homeowner had built to keep out 
     wildlife, calls ski areas ``developmental terrorists'' 
     because they finance much of their operations through the 
     sale of million-dollar monster homes.
       Colorado traditionalist have another gripe. Tourism and 
     other service jobs pay an average of $13,000 annually, 
     compared with the $40,000 that miners or loggers might earn, 
     says Greg Walcher, president of Club 20, a western Colorado 
     trade promotion group.
       They blame past efforts by environmentalists for helping 
     drive away the higher paying jobs, and now see the same 
     pattern surfacing again.
       ``The environmental movement is at least partly responsible 
     for a massive shift away from our traditional industries. 
     Tourism is all some of these towns have left. An attack on 
     the ski industry is an attack on the economy of western 
     Colorado,'' Mr. Walcher said.
       A recent economic study done for the U.S. Forest Service 
     found that from 65 percent to 75 percent of the jobs in the 
     White River National Forest, site of more ski areas than any 
     other national forest, are in tourism.

                                               WHERE THE JOBS ARE
                     [Many jobs in Colorado countries with ski resorts are tourism-related.]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                         Income
                 County                        Major ski resort        Tourism    Percent     Income     (% of
                                                                         jobs     of total   ($1,000)    total)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eagle...................................  Vall......................     12,530         45    236,836         28
Pitkin..................................  Aspen.....................     11,854         53    232,459         38
Summit..................................  Breckenridge..............     11,327         53    182,145        36
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: 1995 White River National Forest Interdisciplinary Team.

       The saying goes that the most common greeting in western 
     Colorado is: ``Can I take your order?''

     

                          ____________________