[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.]
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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?''
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