By Tom Molloy
How Disney’s Proposed Sierra Nevada ski resort changed environmentalism forever
For those of you that didn’t see this great write up in the L.A. Times on January 5th, I’ll summarize this fantastic story to make us proud to be Sierra Club members. It’s been six decades since Walt Disney proposed building a massive ski resort at Mineral King, the unique Sierra Nevada mountain valley bordered on three sides by Sequoia National Park. It’s widely thought that the controversy generated by the proposal, and the Sierra Club lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service, played a significant role in shaping the modern environmental movement.
The Sierra Club technically lost its court battle, nevertheless, the lawsuit contributed to Walt Disney Co. dropping its ski resort proposal and Congress adding Mineral King to Sequoia National Park. However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1972 ruling helped establish the principle that environmental groups can sue government agencies, that environmental groups had “standing” to initiate lawsuits, which has cleared the path for much of the climate-focused litigation we see today. Environmental groups subsequently saw litigation as a new means of holding government agencies accountable. The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund — known today as Earthjustice — was started as a direct result of their being able to litigate. Others, like the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity have legal staffs now as a direct result of their being able to litigate.
Daniel Selmi, an emeritus law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, was interviewed in the Los Angeles Times article. He wrote a book last year titled Dawn at Mineral King Valley: The Sierra Club, the Disney Company, and the Rise of Environmental Law. Much of his book is about the tension between conservation and recreation on public lands, which largely comes down to whom America’s public lands are for, and who gets to make those decisions.
Among many other things , he points out that there’s more and more research showing that even small disturbances to wildlife habitat can have destructive environmental ripple effects. He says “ We have an enormous amount of scientific evidence about ecosystems that we didn’t have 50 years ago. We understand better now how interfering with one part of the ecosystem can affect another part of the ecosystem. So when do you allow that? Well, presumably when there’s some sort of competing value that you think makes it worthwhile.”
All food for thought when you next visit, or view pictures of, Sequoia National Park with its spectacular Mineral King Valley, or ponder the origins and accomplishments of our great Sierra Club.
