A plan to scale back development of the Belleayre Mountain Ski Center, which is part of the Crossroads resort project, is being opposed by Sen. John Bonacic.
The Department of Environmental Conservation is behind the plan criticized by the Mount Hope Republican, whose district includes Delaware County.
However, the seven environmental organizations that signed the Agreement in Principle expressed satisfaction with the detail and thoroughness of the proposal. They also agreed with the decision to drop the proposed Belleayre East trails and lift from the plan.
Bonacic said the DEC is wrong to remove the trail development plans on the east side.
The final scoping document for environmental reviews related to the proposed Wildacres and Highmount Spa Resort complex and the unit management plan for the Belleayre Mountain Ski Center was released by the DEC on Feb. 28.
The DEC began gathering public input in the fall. The purpose of the final scope is to outline the factors that must be included in the environmental impact statements for the resort project and the unit management plan.
The next step in the process is preparation of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the ski center expansion and preparation by Crossroads LLC, the resort sponsor, of a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement regarding the Belleayre Resort.
"Unit Management Plans are exactly that _ plans," Bonacic said. "They are rarely, if ever fully implemented or fully funded in one year.
"The state has made the decision to be in the ski business and we ought to do it well," Bonacic said last week.
"If the DEC is now claiming that we need the money in the budget to fund every element of a UMP, then that means there will be no long-term planning for the growth of our parks and recreation system in the Catskills."
Bonacic said he felt the DEC was "giving in to the complaints of nearby ski areas rather than embracing the public mission of a publicly owned ski facility. By scaling back the UMP, we are saying that we want to be in the ski business, but only if it doesn't offend anyone. Either you are in the ski business or you not."
Representatives for interest groups said the DEC review is necessary.
"We are pleased that DEC will be reviewing impacts from the Ski Center and Belleayre resort just as they would any other project," Cathleen Breen of New York Public Interest Research Group said in a media release.
Deborah Meyer DeWan of The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development said "the DEC should evaluate all impacts of the Belleayre Resort and the Ski Center, as well as their cumulative impacts, fully.
"Additional ski development in this environmentally sensitive region runs the risk of damaging the watershed and trampling upon lands adjacent to those that would be protected as forever wild under the Agreement in Principle," she added.
James L. Simpson, a staff attorney with Riverkeeper, said, among the many issues will be an evaluation of salt storage and road salt alternatives, the impacts to wetlands connected off-site and an analysis of pervious surfaces for parking lots.
Roy Hochberg, from the Catskill Mountains chapter of Trout Unlimited, said the studies would produce "useful analyses and data," but he added "we remain concerned about potential water quality impacts from these developments, especially the water quality impacts from the proposed ski center expansion."
The resort development project will be in the towns of Shandaken in Ulster County and Middletown in Delaware County, within the boundaries of the Catskill Park.
___
Patricia Breakey can be reached at 746-2894 or at stardelhi@stny.rr.com.
