The Associated Press
Three New Mexico ski resorts received a B and two Cs from a group that rated 51 Western ski resorts on how concerned they are about the environment.
Ski Area Citizen's Coalition says Red River Ski Area was given a B and Ski Santa Fe and Taos Ski Valley received Cs on its scorecard designed to show skiers which ski resorts are the greenest.
Other New Mexican ski resorts were not reviewed, the coalition said.
"Red River had a smaller expansion of just 20 or 30 acres, and that's what helped them with their score," a coalition organizer, Ben Doon, said.
Expansion is one of the greatest sins a ski area can commit because it creates permanent clear-cut areas, which lead to silt runoff into creeks and the invasion of wildlife habitats in conifer forests, Doon said by telephone from San Luis, Colo.
"There are animals like lynx and wolverines that need those dense, high-altitude forests, and that's where ski areas tend to be," he said.
The coalition also looked at expansion of hotels and condos into forest habitat, wildlife protection, recycling and environmental information disclosure at ski resorts.
A Taos Ski Valley manager said the ski hill is working to address environmentalists' fears.
The resort operates a water-runoff system that slows and traps some of the rain and snowmelt that could carry sediment down into mountain streams, said Gordon Briner, Taos' assistant general manager.
"We try to slow the water and get that soil out in our sedimentation ponds," he said, adding that Taos Ski Valley also has not expanded in the last 25 years.
In the mountain habitat around Taos Ski Valley the pine marten, a medium-sized mammal, and the northern goshawk, a raptor, could suffer from any expansion of the resort, said Joanie Berde of the activist group Carson Forest Watch.
Downstream of northern New Mexico ski areas, the Rio Grande cutthroat trout would be hurt by increased sediment runoff or toxic leaks, Berde said.
Other ski areas in the region scored as follows in the coalition's survey: Durango Mountain Resort, D; Vail Ski Resort, F; Aspen Mountain Ski Resort, A; and Wolf Creek Ski Area, A.
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On the Net:
For ratings of other ski areas: www.skiareacitizens.com.
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