ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the analysis of the South Mountain Expansion that focuses primarily on the federal legal framework provided by the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which provide the substantive and procedural structure, respectively, for analysis of federal actions on national forest lands. Mountain resort development in the United States' national forests triggers a number of federal forest management and related legal authorities. According to NEPA regulations, public participation is a cornerstone of NEPA's exploration of the range of alternatives and their impacts on the environment. The Loon Resort EIS was also significantly shaped by the way in which the Forest Service framed the analysis through the definition of the 'purpose and need' for the expansion and the 'scope' of the proposed actions and alternatives to be analyzed. Machine-made snow is essential to the success of today's mountain resorts, but making snow triggers a set of human activities with ecological consequences.
