During the night of October 18th, cloaked in the dark of an almost new
moon, two or more people crept along a Colorado ridge line, leaving plastic
milk jugs filled with gasoline as fiery calling cards at five build- ins
and four chair lifts. The 33,000 square-foot, 550 seat Two Elks Lodge
was totaled, resulting in minimum damages of $12 million to
Vale Associates (VA). In addition, a 2,500-square-foot picnic shelter,
a ski patrol building and one of the chair-lifts were ruined, pushing the
total amount of damages much higher than the widely reported $12 million
and making this the single most expensive act of environmental sabotage
in US history.
The only known witnesses to the fire were four sleeping hunters, who alerted
the authorities after they were awakened by the blazes around 4 a.m.
One of the four, Neil Sebso, had gone to sleep around midnight seeking
warmth inside a Vail restroom, while the other three camped outside.
Sebso says he woke from a sleepy fog, thinking that somebody had opened
the door, looked in and left. When he got up to investigate, he saw
nothing "and went back to bed. Next thing, I was awoken by Steve,"
who showed him the rising flames.
The arson fires were set only five days after a court had ruled that Vail
resorts could proceed with it's planned Category III expansion into the
Two Elks Roadless Area, despite the objections of local environmentalists.
The Colorado based group Ancient Forest Rescue (AFR) has
led that opposition, noting that the development of 2,200 acres of additional
"ski-able" terrain on public land is but a prelude to VA's real plans for
building luxury condominiums, a new base area and village to village gondolas
on as much as 3,000 additional acres.
The new ski area alone, without the condos, would include four new chair
lifts, 12 miles of road and ski ways and a 350-seat restaurant spanning
Two Elks Creek, among other things. Ben Doon of AFR noted in the
May-June issue of the Earth First! Journal that, "Twelve
hundred logging trucks would be needed to haul away six million board feet
of virgin spruce and fir. In return for the destruction of this pristine
roadless area, the public would get back a pitiful 1.5 cents on every dollar
made by Vail Inc. on the expansion, or less than $1 for every $56 lift
ticket." Vail's net revenues last year were 291 million, garnered
from Vail Mountain and its five other ski resorts, which already include
six hotels, 72 restaurants, 40 retail and rental outlets and over 1,300
condominiums. Altogether, Vail Resorts, the parent company of Vail
Associates, controls almost half of the Colorado ski market.
The focus of the environmental opposition, however, was not the unwieldy
size of the corporation, but the unconscionable destruction of the last
of the potential lynx habitat in Colorado. Since 1935 only four
lynx
sightings have been documented in Colorado, and three of those sightings
were in the immediate vicinity of the proposed expansion. White River
National Forest Supervisor Martha Ketelle had agreed in writing not to
allow work on the expansion until a voluntary consultation with the US
Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on the risk to the lynx had been
concluded. But both Vail Resorts and the Forest Service threw the
pretense of concern about the lynx to the wind when logging equipment
was brought in on October 16.
(click on image to see the color
cover picture)
Why the rush? Because hearings are now being conducted on listing
the
lynx as endangered. If the lynx is so listed,
USFWS consultation would be required, and, as the Colorado Division of
Wildlife has stated,
"If there is any critical lynx habitat in the state,
this is it!" Indeed, the listing of the lynx would necessitate
the largest endangered species recovery effort ever, encompassing 53 national
forests and 24 Bureau of Land Management districts.
And so, as soon as the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decided on October
14 not to impose an injunction on expansion until the appeal is heard,
Vail began clearcutting and roadbuilding. AFR intended to protest
in earnest. But while AFR bided it's time, the ELF
acted.
The widely held suspicion that the fires were set to protest the Vail expansion
was confirmed two days after the fire when the ELF issued a communiqué
claiming responsibility.
Suddenly, the ELF was center-stage in the theater of national media.
But the star of the show is camera shy. The ELF is an underground
group with no spokespeople or office. In the past two years, it's
actions have included burning two Forest Service wildlife research facilities
in Washington, burning Forest Service vehicles and spiking trees in Oregon's
Willamette National Forest, monkey-wrenching bulldozers in California,
and burning a horse slaughter-house in central Oregon.
Much of the information about the ELF available in the US has come
from the EF!J. In the September-October 1993 issue,
an anonymous article announced the creation of the ELF in England.
It said the ELF "is a movement of independently operating eco-sabateurs"
that split from the "British EF! movement, which has focused directly on
public direct actions." The author noted that, unlike the ALF
which seeks publicity, "ELF cells, for security reasons, work without
informing the press and do not claim responsibility for actions...
The surest way to be done for conspiracy or to attract surveillance or
infiltrators is to seek attention." Instead, the ELF publicizes
pre-announced, internationally coordinated "Earth Nights." These
announcements always call for harm to property only, never life.
A second article in the September-October 1996 EF!J by Tara
the Sea,
ELF specified that the "ELF solidified in 1992 at
the first UK Earth First! gathering in Brighten, England."
It also reiterated that the "ELF
has no command structure or solid
network. Each group is independent. There is no press office
or office, so the authorities have nowhere to trace or focus their eyes
and ears."
The
ELF also lacks a phone number, contact person or e-mail address.
For information, the journalists covering the Vail arson turned to the
next best things, Earth First! and the Animal Liberation Front
press
office in Minnesota (what the heck, EF!, ALF, ELF, the names are
so similar!). The story quickly turned from arson and it's motives,
to "eco-terrorism" and it's perpetrators. Much like when Theodore
Kaczynski was arrested and the media tried to portray him as an Earth First!er,
the spark of interest was whipped into a full-blown conflagration by long-time
anti-environmentalists, Ron Arnold and Barry Clausen. They put themselves
forward as experts on "eco-terrorism", and contacted major media outlets
to spin the story. Lazy reporters failed to disclose both Arnold
and Clausen's ties to the timber industry. In the past, Arnold has
gone as far as to say, "We are out to kill the fuckers. We're simply
trying to eliminate them. Our goal is to destroy environmentalism
once and for all." In service of that agenda, Clausen and Arnold
portray all frontline activists as violent terrorists, besmirching the
good names of thousands of activists across the country who put their lives
on the line as EARTH FIRST!
The
Rocky Mountain News ran with the story, quoting Clausen
saying, "The Earth First! Journal puts out the call for action.
They read the literature and then they go out and commit acts of sabotage."
To prove his credibility as an eco-terrorist researcher, Clausen contrives
analysis like, "The language in the Internet communiqué claiming
responsibility 'sounded exactly like' other messages the Earth Liberation
Front has sent," specifically because the communiqué uses the
word "tolerated" (that most terrorist of words!). Clausen continues,
"The eco-terrorism movement has spawned 'serial arsonists, no telling how
many, who are going around the West.'" Ron Arnold even said in USA
Today that "the fires have 'upped the ante' to the tactics used by
terrorists in Europe and the Middle East."
While Clausen and Arnold spewing bull-pucky is no new thing, the media's
alarming perpetuation of libelous and inaccurate information was truly
surprising. Perhaps no article was further from the truth than one
in the London Observer, which claimed, "Last month's issue of
Live
Wild or Die delivered an eco-terrorist manifesto that has come
to a smoking climax in the ski town of Vail, Colorado." The ELF
"is
led by a man in his early thirties who calls himself 'Voice from the Siskiyous'
... In 1988 Earth First! fell apart. Foreman, concerned
at the growing violence, conceded the leadership to Darryl Cherney and
Judy Bari... The group is now part of the Direct Action Movement, based
in Eugene, Oregon, and publishes a Direct Action Manual... The ELF
is now part of a network loosely fronted by an alliance called the Liberation
Collective, based in Portland, Oregon." That one article contains
so many inaccuracies, it takes the whole idea of slovenly journalism to
a new level.
For the record, Live Wild or Die did not print an "eco-terrorist
manifesto",
it doesn't publish monthly, there is no ELF leader, EF! didn't
fall apart, there is no EF! leader, Judy is spelled Judi, there
is no such thing as the Direct Action Movement, and the Liberation Collective
is not an ELF
front.
Despite the media's seeming certainty about the identity of arsonists,
some have questioned the authenticity of the ELF communiqué.
They point out that the communiqué wasn't sent out until two days
after the arson, that the ELF has said previously it wouldn't claim
responsibility for actions and that the communiqué seems to contain
a veiled threat of physical violence ("For your safety..."). Likewise,
one AFR activist pointed out that a more effective act of sabotage
would have been aimed at the machinery working on the expansion, not the
existing resort.
