Who Hates Trout Rivers?

Why should state and federal taxpayers build Snowshoe a treatment plant? How can the state and county, with straight faces, call this a "regional" plant when something like 90 percent of the human waste will issue from Snowshoe, a private, commercial development?

Dr. Heartwell offers this: "The state doesn't have to put it on the Sharp farm; it could put it on state holdings. I don't blame Snowshoe. The state has offered this to them. The state has built them roads. I think the state has done enough for Snowshoe. The state's embarrassing; and I worked for the state... Snowshoe is a multi-million-dollar operation. It has lots and lots of money; the state doesn't have to build them this sewage plant."

"Lots and lots of money" is an understatement. The resort's Vancouver-based owner, Intrawest (purchased in 2006 by the even richer private equity firm Fortress Investment Group), owns a dozen other major ski resorts in Canada and the United States, including Whistler (British Columbia), Stratton (Vermont), Tremblant (Quebec), and Winter Park (Colorado).

Because crowding at ski resorts is a turnoff, Intrawest won't say how many people visit Snowshoe each year, but it's one of the 25 busiest ski operations in the US. With massive fake-snow production, skiing usually starts around Thanksgiving and runs through the end of April. Fourteen lifts provide a 2,300-person-per-hour capacity. There are 60 trails, eight bars, 16 restaurants, 11 shopping centers, a golf course and 1,800 housing units (including 1,400 rentals). The development covers only four percent of the taxable landmass in Pocahontas County, but Snowshoe pays more than 50 percent of the property taxes. The resort annually contributes about $8.5 million to the state's economy, a figure that has doubled in the past decade.

Its economic contribution notwithstanding, Snowshoe hasn't been a great neighbor. In order to make fake snow, irrigate lawns and provide water to its residents and businesses, it has dammed and dewatered the Shavers Fork, once a fine trout stream in its own right and a rich source of cold, clean water for the acid- and heat-stressed Cheat River.

For repeated permit violations at its three existing sewage treatment plants, Snowshoe was recently fined $2.9 million. Of this DEP forgave $2.7 million because Snowshoe promised to turn over those three dangerously dilapidated plants — along with all past, present and future liability — to the Pocahontas County Public Service District. That, of course, is precisely what Intrawest was hoping for.

One might suppose that the main source of public outrage here would be the imminent threat to human health, the environment and wild trout. But no, it is property rights. And for once property-rights groups have something legitimate to bitch about in the impending seizure by eminent domain of the Sharp family farm. Unfortunately, however, they can't offer the family much more than moral support because most of their charters and by-laws forbid legal involvement where condemnation is officially (if not actually) for the public by the public.

That's not to say that the environmental community, anglers and spelunkers haven't responded. But, in West Virginia, they don't have a lot of political clout.

And, with the exception of the spelunkers and the members of Eight Rivers Safe Development, they could certainly be making a better and more aggressive effort. Outdoor writer and fish activist Beau Beasley — who has done more than anyone to focus the angling community on this impending tragedy — laments what he sees as torpor among his fellow trout fishers.

"You want to know who's leading the charge to protect this river — cavers," he says. "Fly fishermen are a distant fifth. After months of investigating the issues surrounding the Elk River I have discovered two things: First, DEP seems much more interested in protecting West Virginia business than the environment. Second, when it comes to protecting the state's fragile watersheds, Trout Unlimited, at least on a state level, seems to have a very wait-and-see approach. If they wait much longer to act, there won't be much left to see."