"I decided last night that, by God, I had my fill of this," Worf said Tuesday. "They've had all kinds of opportunities to bring it up and they've refused."
At issue was a lawsuit filed last spring by the Carlton Creek Irrigation Co. seeking to define access to Little Carlton Lake to repair and maintain a dam in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
Bitterroot Resort spokesman David Blair said the Maclay family and the irrigation company are simply trying to protect a historic right that was established well before the area was set aside as wilderness.
Construction of the dams at Carlton and Little Carlton lakes started before the turn of the century and the road into the reservoirs have been maintained regularly over the last 116 years, he said.
The irrigation company maintains the dam at Little Carlton Lake was breached in the early 1960s by a local Forest Service official. The area was designated as wilderness in 1964.
Worf doubts the breach was done by the Forest Service - "they'd have no authority to do that" - and he worries that Maclay has plans to rebuild the dam at Little Carlton Lake.
"They were proposing to invade the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness and construct a new dam," he said.
Blair said that's not so.
"There are no plans to rebuild the dam," said Blair. "The Maclay family believes it does have a perfectly valid right Š which they may or may not choose to exercise."
Blair said Worf suggested the Maclays walk away from that right in return for potential goodwill from the Missoula community for the proposed resort.
"Few, if any, landowners in Montana are asked to give up property rights in exchange for hypothetical 'credit' in an unrelated public discussion about the use of public lands," Blair said in a memorandum. "Montana landowners are not known for relinquishing valid existing property rights."
Blair said the future of the proposed ski area shouldn't be tied to what happens at Little Carlton Lake. Instead, he said it should be a community decision.
"We know we have a long ways to go with the Missoula public," Blair said.
The idea of a ski area at Lolo Peak isn't new to Worf.
He first heard about the idea for a ski resort on the peak south of Missoula back in 1969 - on his second day on the job at the Forest Service's regional office. Three staffers had carried a plaster model of Lolo Peak into his office, complete with white stripes that represented where the ski runs would go.
"Even back then we realized it had great potential, but that it would take snowmaking on the lower slopes to make it work," Worf said.
The original thoughts put the ski run on the north side of the hill in the headwaters of Mill Creek completely on national forest lands, he said.
"It didn't involve Maclay's land at all," he said.
In the late 1980s, Worf said, he was doing everything he could to promote the idea, but there didn't seem to be much interest. He belonged to a group calling itself the Lolo Peak Economic Research Committee that met every two weeks at the Uptown Cafe to discuss the potential.
When Maclay's proposal first appeared in a Missoulian story, Worf initially thought it might be an opportunity to take another look. He was invited to join the steering committee by Blair.
Worf said he agreed, but with one caveat - the development couldn't impact the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
"It's one of the first 54 designated in the original wilderness legislation," Worf said. "It's a real public treasure. That's always been one of my major concerns, the potential for impact to the wilderness."
As a member of the steering committee, Worf said he didn't go out and "beat the bushes to stir up support for the idea. I supported the idea to look into it."
After hearing about the lawsuit filed against the Bitterroot National Forest last spring by the Carlton Creek Irrigation Co., Worf said he wanted the steering committee to discuss the issue.
"I was told it was a separate issue and it didn't have anything to do with the resort," he said.
Worf now believes the additional water storage would be used to support the resort, with its planned residences and golf course.
"This was an issue that I thought would stir up public opposition to the resort," he said. "I thought it was important that we discuss it."
He was later told by Bitterroot Resort officials that the issue was beyond the scope of the steering committee.
Worf said he no longer supports the resort.
"It looks to me that as far as Tom Maclay is concerned, it's all one way," he said. "He thinks he's doing great things for the Missoula community. He thinks the public should give its full support to the project and tell the Forest Service to give him everything he wants."
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