Settling Saddleback

For 20 years, the feud over how best to protect the Appalachian Trail near Saddleback Mountain has alternately festered and boiled. Now, with the new year, the National Park Service and Saddleback officials are hoping to settle the matter.

And the settlement is at hand: The government, which has the money, should pay Saddleback what the ski resort wants for the land, resolving this matter for good.

While the proclivity of the government to throw money at a problem is all too apparent — often, to the chagrin of taxpayers — this is one case where money is the only remaining issue.

The National Park Service clearly feels it needs to take the land, or at least purchase an easement that will prevent ski resort activities on and nearby the trail. Saddleback appears increasingly aware that the government is eventually going to take that land, thus altering the company’s expansion plans; in turn, they want the government to pay significantly more for that land than the Park Service has indicated it wants to pay.

That’s silly. Congress will soon have access to $900 million or more in Land and Water Conservation Fund money specifically intended to make land purchases of this sort.

Even if the government winds up having to spend $9 million to purchase an easement for the 3-mile corridor in question, in order to appease Saddleback’s concerns about future expansion, so what? It’s a penny on every dollar in the fund, and a buy that protects land the National Park Service and Appalachian Trail groups say is some of the most important to protect.

It is unfortunate that years of attempting to strike compromises on trail location, ski area activities and the like have not brought an agreement. But that’s the past, and we’ve been stuck with this disagreement for too long.

If there is going to be a fair resolution to this matter, it’s going to be in the form of a check — one large enough to convince Saddleback it has received fair compensation, and one that secures easement rights to the land trail supporters desire.

All that remains is for Congress to sign that check.