The heart of the deal is preserving thousands of acres of public and private forest to protect threatened birds and restoring thousands of acres of public and private pasture to wetlands. The developer says building a ski resort on the mountain 28 miles northwest of Klamath Falls can be an environmental boon. It can be a positive force. The main thing is to put something on the table that will have a beneficial effect. It's the benefit rather than the price tag.
Environmentalists say all of the proposed trade-offs add up to a big loss for endangered species.
Mitigation means cutting a guy's legs off and giving him a wheelchair. That is what we're getting. What we get is not as good as what we have. Northern spotted owls inhabit 2,423 acres on Pelican Butte that is a late successional reserve, land set aside for the bird's long-term protection and survival. Bald eagles, which are scheduled to be removed from the endangered species list as early as July, use 115 acres on Pelican Butte for nesting or roosting, and no additional habitat is available in the national forest.