For Immediate Release
Contact: Rachael Woods
Homewood Mountain Resort
530.581.8321 – pr@skialpine.com
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Homewood Environmental Grant Funding Hard at Work

Homewood, CA – Over $700K of California state grants for both land restoration and forest fuels management at the Homewood Mountain Resort are helping to further basin-wide efforts to help keep Lake Tahoe blue. This past summer, Homewood completed an additional 80,000 square feet of land restoration on mountain thanks in large part to a $650K matching state grant to study and implement ways to help keep storm water runoff and sediment in place and from flowing into streams and eventually Lake Tahoe. The resort announced today that had reached its milestone goal of restoring a total of 240,000 square feet of decades-old abandoned work roads to a natural state thanks in large part to the grant funding. The work on site was managed by Integrated Environmental Restoration Services (IERS). IERS has been at the forefront of innovative sediment source control in the Lake Tahoe Basin and was brought in to work at Homewood Mountain Resort by JMA Ventures when they acquired the property in 2006.



Homewood is actively reducing overall land coverage at the resort, with a particular focus on removing old mining and logging roads - known to be one of the largest contributors to sediment in the Tahoe basin. Key to this effort, Homewood is monitoring the sediment reduction that is a direct result of the land restoration work and in combination with modeling, can clearly demonstrate significant reductions in sediment yield after restoration. Since inception of the land restoration work in 2006, Homewood’s restoration efforts have resulted in a reduction of over 60 metric tons of sediment runoff. Within restored areas, sediment runoff has been reduced by more than 97% meaning that water is largely being absorbed into the ground as opposed to running off into streams and the lake. The land restoration efforts at Homewood are expected to serve as a Lake Tahoe basin-wide model for how a public/private partnership can work to maintain the environmental health and water clarity of the lake. The proposed Homewood Mountain Resort ski area master plan includes a significant continuation of the land restoration efforts as well as other environmental improvement projects.

With the land restoration completion date originally set for summer, 2010, Homewood is pleased to be ahead of schedule. Treated areas have been restored to a natural state by following the guidelines of the Sediment Resource Control Handbook, authored by Michael Hogan of IERS and published in 2008 by the Sierra Business Council in collaboration with the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board and the California Alpine Resort Environmental Cooperative. The land restoration goals at Homewood were established shortly following JMA Ventures’ acquisition of Homewood in 2006. The efforts received additional support from the State of California Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Tahoe Resource Conservation District (Tahoe RCD) via the $650,000 matching grant in June, 2008.



Equally important has been Homewood’s forest fuels management. This fall, an additional five acres of fire prevention efforts are to be completed on particularly steep sloped areas at Homewood. Due to challenges of thinning forest fuels on steeper slopes, the planned forest fuels management work will further help Homewood with the goal of forest fuels management on all 1200 acres of the resort by 2012. To date, over 450 acres (or slightly more than one-third of the mountain) have been treated. Homewood’s forest fuel mitigation work on the steeper slopes are being carried out due to a $65K matching grant from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection agency.



“Homewood is the Lake Tahoe Basin’s largest parcel of private land,” said Art Chapman, president of JMA Ventures, LLC. “That said, Homewood is also enjoyed and appreciated by all who live here or visit for vacation. “It’s up to us to protect the land Homewood encompasses; which is why our team places a premium upon environmental restoration and planning. We’re thrilled with progress to date and we’ll continue to set the highest of environmental standards for ourselves and ideally serve as a model for others.”