People v. United States Department of Transportation

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND DENYING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

The Town of Mammoth Lakes (“Town”) is located on the eastern side of Sierra Nevada in southern Mono County, an area with unique natural attractions but inconvenient access. The Mammoth Yosemite Airport,.which is small and presently has no scheduled commercial service, is approximately seven miles east of the Town on U.S. 395. In the late 1990’s, there were plans afoot to upgrade the area’s ski facilities and to construct thousands of new housing units. At the same time, the Town was concerned that it was losing skiing visitors to resorts with regularly scheduled commercial air service. The Town therefore proposed an expansion of the airport to accommodate commercial jet traffic, and hopefully increase substantially the number of visitors to the region. On May 30, 2000, the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, whose majority owner is Intrawest Corporation, entered an air service agreement with American Airlines initially for commercial flights from American’s hubs in Chicago and Dallas.

In October 2000, the Town published a draft environmental assessment for this expansion project.…