Targhee Expansion Review: Idaho Bears More, Gets No Fix

DRIGGS — The Forest Service's final review of the Grand Targhee expansion accepts that Teton County, Idaho, will carry more of the project's demand on roads, emergency services, and housing, while Wyoming will receive most of the resort's tax revenue. It also says the Forest Service has no authority to order a fix, which leaves the problem with the two Teton counties.

Acting Regional Forester Kristin Bail signed the review on Oct. 26 as reviewing officer for objections to the Targhee expansion. It is "the final administrative review by the Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture," and it says Kim Pierson, forest supervisor for the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and Curlew National Grassland, "may sign the decision after addressing the instructions," 12 in all. Pierson's draft decision from May 29 would add 694 acres to the resort's permit area.

At the objection resolution meeting in Victor on Sept. 24, Brad Wolfe, Teton County Idaho Commission Chair, told Bail, "The road access, emergency dispatch, solid waste processing, and workforce housing for Grand Targhee flow through Teton County, Idaho. Yet none of the resort's property sales or lodging tax revenues accrue to our county." The county asked her to hold up each season's construction approvals until the resort signed agreements to pay its share. "Fortunately, the Forest Service has the administrative tool to address this problem," Wolfe said.

The environmental impact statement "acknowledges that a relatively higher proportion of tax collections are expected to continue flowing to Teton County, Wyoming, and a higher share of the increased demand for social services and infrastructure is expected to be borne by Teton County, Idaho," her response says, but the Forest Service "does not have the authority to dictate a mitigation strategy for cross boundary tax revenue and infrastructure cost concerns." Most of the concerns about wildfire evacuation, emergency access and the demand on local fire, EMS, search and rescue and law enforcement fall "outside the jurisdiction" of the national forest, and "NEPA does not require the Forest Service to regulate local housing supply." None of the county's requests became an instruction, and the response does not take up the construction-approval idea.

On July 23, at the joint workshop where the two Teton County commissions took up sharing Grand Targhee's growth costs, Wolfe said he wanted "to explore immediately some type of agreement between the two counties ... whether it's dispatch, sheriff, roads." Asked for a timeline, he said, "I think 60 to 90 days would be very realistic to me." Idaho commissioner Dan Powers proposed four working groups, each pairing commissioners from both counties, on a resort tax or voluntary fee, a law-enforcement agreement, regional transit and Teton Pass safety. "I would think we could get that going in a 30 to 60 day timeframe," he said.

The 90-day window closed Oct. 21. The Idaho commission's one agenda item on next steps came Oct. 13. The board spent about three minutes on it, finding a date for another joint meeting with Wyoming. Teton County, Wyoming, lists a special joint meeting with the Teton County, Idaho, commissioners on Nov. 30 at noon in Jackson.

Two of Bail's 12 instructions can still change what Pierson approves, and both are about wildlife. Pierson cannot sign until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service completes formal consultation and issues a Biological Opinion, and the decision must adopt its mitigation measures. The Targhee expansion would remove an estimated 452 whitebark pines, enough on its own to require the consultation. Pierson must also "identify appropriate mitigations or alternatives to ensure minimization of impacts at the population level" for the Teton Range bighorn sheep herd, the one open path to Wolfe's request at the hearing to take South Bowl out of the expansion. The other 10 ask her to explain or document the decision.