Today’s Mammoth Times announced a tentative opinion in the federal court case seeking to block expansion of Mammoth/Yosemite Airport. The federal judge’s opinion stated — as I predicted — that “the Environmental Assessment prepared by the FAA for the Mammoth Yosemite Airport did not comply with all provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).” A final ruling is rule within another week or so.

I know all of you out there are obsessed with keeping up with my reading list. If you’re interested in a take on “Why the Corporate Ski Industry is Bad for Skiing, Ski Towns, and the Environment,” check out Downhill Slide, by Hal Clifford. It’s a great read, and should make you think about where you hit the slopes next time.

By the way, the best guide to the Eastern Sierra that I’ve been able to find is Sue Irwin’s book. Check it out before you head out there next time.

After a couple of false starts, it’s over 60 today, and with any luck we’ve seen the last of the snow. It’s been a while since I posted anything as I got a bit carried away with reading for a paper that I’m working on — I suppose I’ll find in well in academia if the “references” section is longer than the part that I actually write myself…

Megan and I had a good trip down to Mexico.. We few down to Zacatecas, where several friends of mine are living, and then drove from there out to the coast to a place called Melaque. Melaque is just north of Barra de Navidad, which is somewhere between Puetro Vallarta and Manzanillo. Great little town, and an interesting (but long) drive all the way down from ZCL. I gotta say, Zacatecas is a nice little city, and interesting in its own right, but if you’re going to spend a year or two in Mexico slacking, why not on the beach?

After returning from Mexico, I headed down to Denver for the annual conference of the American Planning Association. Good experience, and I had never been to Denver before, so that was good. I stayed with old friends, well old friend, really, since Kim was out of town, but it was good to catch up with Anondo, who is in his last year of residency out there. He’s working on X-Ray vision or something. There were several other MS planning students from Madison at the conference, as well as a couple of faculty.

Now it’s back to putting words on paper. I’m working on a paper for my regional planning course about the eastern sierra, and in particular the ongoing efforts to expand the airport at Mammoth. The ski resort of course wants to fly 757’s in there, and the town is in their back pocket, but as you’d imagine there are not a few people out in that area (Bishop, Mono Lake, etc) that aren’t interested in
having big jets and Aspenites jam up their neck of the woods. It’s come to a legal battle at this point: the FAA approved the expansion, and then the CA state attorney general and a bunch of others sued the FAA for failing to consider the impacts. I met a local planning lawyer who teaches at Sonoma State out
at this conference in Denver and we talked about it a bit. Interesting situation. So what would a planner do? not really sure yet, but I that’s what I’m supposed to be writing about.