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144 f i f t e e n n damages and courts Three other significant Tahoe court cases were argued in the latter part of the twentieth century. They did not involve trpa or constitutional issues. The first two related cases, Hewlett v. Cushing and People of the State of California v. Squaw Valley Ski Corporation, had ecological importance in the basin. The other case concerned Cave Rock, The Access Fund v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, and had national importance for Native American rights. In each case, Tahoe’s heritage was given precedence over unrestricted use of its resources. Alex Cushing was a Harvard-educated attorney recruited as an investor by ski-industry visionary Wayne Poulsen to help develop Squaw Valley into a ski resort in the 1950s. Shortly before the area opened for business, a bitter dispute broke up the partnership. Cushing owned 52 percent of the stock, and he called a stockholders’ meeting while Poulsen, the president, was out of town. Cushing ousted Poulsen, taking control of the area that comprised a small lodge, one rope tow, and a long double chair lift. Intent on gaining publicity, in 1954 Cushing submitted a bid to host the 1960 Winter Olympics. When, against all odds, Cushing’s dogged lobbying resulted in the US nomination, Avery Brundage , the president of the International Olympic Committee, commented that the US committee “obviously has taken leave of their senses.” A similar effort by Cushing at the international level created one of the biggest coups in sports history, bringing the Games to the resort that one Olympic committee member called “a glorified picnic ground.” Cushing earned his way to the Ski Industry and U.S. National Ski Halls of Fame by putting on hugely successful Games. Infrastructure built for the event included the Reno Tahoe International Airport in Reno and improvements to the highways from Sacramento and Carson City to the lake. An estimated 240,000 people attended, and the televised coverage, revealing Tahoe’s scenic wonders, was a primary factor in making it a worldwide destination resort. After the Olympics, Cushing spent large amounts of time on the East Coast, d a m a g e s a n d c o u r t s 145 and throughout the 1960s and 1970s the lifts and facilities deteriorated. The collapse of the Olympic ice rink’s roof symbolized the resort’s plight. In 1975 Cushing decided to revitalize the resort. As evinced by his procurement of the Olympics, Cushing would charge headlong into projects. He also believed that dealing with state and federal politics “was chaos,” following the maxim “Build first, then get permission.”1 Owing to those attitudes, Cushing became the poster boy for bad environmental stewardship. The resort was fined year after year for emitting pollutants into Squaw Creek, which runs into the Truckee River. The water-quality board identified Squaw Valley’s management as repeat violators “who disputed almost every regulatory or enforcement action.” In 1983 Cushing was fined $350,000 after being found guilty of trying to hide a two-thousand-gallon diesel-oil spill in the snow.2 Cushing acquired the part of Shirley Canyon that had been a state park adjoining Squaw Valley in the early 1970s, as Governor Ronald Reagan did not want the state in the ski business. When Cushing sought to improve his resort, Placer County approved the removal of 90 trees in Shirley Canyon for a “through-the-trees” expert run. But, noting that the area had “sensitive geologic , soil, slope, and vegetative characteristics,” the county included severe restrictions in the approval: the county permit specified no other trees would be removed and no roads developed “now or in the future.” Throughout the 1980s, the resort’s plans evolved, until in 1988 its management sought, and the county board of supervisors approved, the removal of 1,858 trees to enlarge the Shirley Canyon ski trails. Nearby property owners and the Sierra Club filed suit to block the clear-cutting of the canyon slope. In January 1989, before the court could hear the case, Cushing met with his mountain manager. Another employee overheard Cushing say, “We have a very short time frame here. We have the legal documents to proceed on this. Let’s get these things cut. What are they going to do, make us replant them?”3 A plan to sell the timber had been in the works but had not received approval from the California Department of Forestry. When informed that...

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