Snowbasin land swap gets ok
10/03/96
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c Copyright 1996 The Associated Press
Snowbasin Land Swap Gets OK
By KRISTEN MOULTON
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, October 3, 1996 7:25 pm EDT
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The U.S. Senate gave the nod to the
controversial Snowbasin land swap on Thursday, a move that Sen. Bob
Bennett says will lift the only cloud over Utah's role as host of
the 2002 Winter Olympics.
The swap that will allow a developer to turn the modest ski hill into
a four-season resort before the games was part of the lengthy Omnibus
Parks & Lands Management Act.
The Senate passed the act unanimously, and President Clinton has said
he'll sign it. The House last week passed another version of the
bill.
The bill allows Earl Holding, owner of Sinclair Oil and Sun Valley
companies, to swap 4,115 acres of land he owns in northern Utah's
Weber and Box Elder counties for 1,320 acres of national forest land
at Snowbasin, also in Weber County.
``It removes the last cloud over the Olympic Games in Utah,'' said
Bennett, R-Utah, who was a co-sponsor. ``The last question of whether
the Olympics are welcome in Utah has been settled.''
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the swap will allow Snowbasin to begin
building ski runs and lifts, lodges and other visitor facilities next
summer.
Snowbasin will be the site for six skiing events in the 2002 games --
the men's and women's downhill, combined downhill and super G races.
Executives for Sinclair Oil, Snowbasin's parent company, had argued
that an expansion to a four-season resort was imperative for
Snowbasin to survive. Luxury homes and a golf course are part of the
company's master plan for the land.
The vice president of Save Our Canyons, which opposed the land swap,
said opponents were unable to communicate to Congress that the
measure was more about commercial real estate development than the
Olympics.
The group had argued that a swap giving Snowbasin just 220 acres of
U.S. Forest Service land would have been enough for the resort to
develop the lodges and other day facilities needed for the Olympics.
``The legislation got momentum as the Olympics bill early on and it
was very hard to shake that designation,'' said Tom Berggren, a Salt
Lake lawyer and vice president of the group.
Those who questioned the swap weren't invited to testify before
Congressional committees, as were Snowbasin, the forest service and
Salt Lake Olympic officials, Berggren said.
Berggren said the fact the swap was part of the omnibus parks bill
made it tough to fight because those in Congress wanted to boast
about it before the election. The parks bill affects 113 federal
sites in 41 states, including scores of popular federal park
improvements, park expansions and federal land swaps.