SaveTheSummit.org is to Save Donner Summit from irresponsible development.
Title
Save The Summit (Donner Summit in California).
Additional Information
Kirk Syme, Woodstock Development, and Todd Foster and Mark Foster, Foster Enterprises, joined forces as Royal Gorge LLC. and purchased Royal Gorge Cross Country Ski Resort, apparently driven by the notion that the land was, as stated in Royal Gorge Future promotional materials, "slated for development."
Where others saw Royal Gorge Cross Country as offering the best cross country ski experience in the country, Kirk Syme, and Todd and Mark Foster, saw instead an opportunity to cover pristine mountains with houses, hotels, and condo time shares (aka fractional ownership/interval ownership units), masquerading as a "conservation community."
Royal Gorge LLC., however, has met with serious roadblocks in their so far unsuccessful attempts to push through development up at Donner Summit. Bruce Kranz, the pro-development Placer County Supervisor to whom they donated in excess of Thirty Thousand dollars, was defeated by a Serene Lakes resident who believes developers should not be allowed to trample the private property rights of others.
In addition, Placer County has stated unequivocally that Royal Gorge LLC. must provide a second egress for their proposed development, as a community surrounded by forest needs adequate roads for escape from fire, and access for fire fighting personnel. Royal Gorge LLC, however, has failed to identify suitable egress.
The Donner Summit area is seriously impacted by difficulties disposing of sewage; the current system is at its limits, and any attempts to increase the effluent currently discharged into the South Yuba River will run up against stricter enforcement of NPDES standards, and increasing awareness that the South Yuba should not be regarded as a scenic sewer.
Royal Gorge LLC has yet to identify adequate water sources to satisfy California's strict "Show the Water" law, and developers all over the state are confronting the hard realities of low snow pack, drought, and scanty water supplies. The small community of Serene Lakes is unwilling to have the two Serene Lakes dredged, drained, or turned into muddy bathtubs to slake the huge water needs of the future "conservation community" (also dubbed "conservation calamity") proposed by the developers.
