Olympics: Gold, Silver, Bronze -- But Not Green

It will cost nearly $2 billion to stage the Salt Lake City Olympics -- almost $800,000 per athlete -- with U.S. taxpayers picking up about a quarter of the tab. Partly due to increased security, the Utah games, a 17-day sports spectacular ending on Feb. 25, will be the most expensive Winter Olympics ever. "These are not wasted funds," says International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge. Such an investment, he says, leaves a "great legacy" to Olympic cities.

But in Salt Lake, they will leave another legacy as well: profound ecological consequences. The Winter Games, even more so than the Summer Games, are prone to wreaking havoc on the environment because they take place outdoors in relatively isolated, snow-covered, mountain areas that are suddenly overwhelmed by increased automobile traffic, waste production, and energy consumption.

Following the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, the IOC adopted an ambitious set of guidelines that emphasized environmental protection, sustainable development, and a "proactive" and "dynamic approach" to achieve green goals. The environment was touted as one of three pillars of the Olympics, along with sports and culture, and cities bidding for the Games had to trot out their green credentials.

Such considerations, however, have largely been abandoned in Salt Lake, and in the end the region will be likely by left with significant environmental damage from the Olympics. "The only thing green about these Games," says Alexis Kelner, co-founder of the Utah environmental group Save Our Canyons, "is the color of the currency being thrown around."

Notorious for its political leaders who are overtly hostile to environmental regulations, Utah was a dubious choice to host what was mandated to be the first environmentally sound Winter Games. The Beehive state is also home to the Sagebrush Rebellion (which claims National Parks are illegal) and other rabid anti-ecology movements that oppose federal public land policies, while favoring unfettered resource exploitation.

Then how did Salt Lake manage to get the Winter Games? Illegal payoffs, rather than environmental factors, were paramount in the IOC's decision to hold the 2002 Olympics in Utah. Salt Lake City Olympic bid executives plied IOC delegates with seven million dollars worth of cash, gifts, lavish trips, plastic surgery for their spouses, and scholarships for their children. Supplying attractive escorts for visiting dignitaries wasn't particularly unique, but adding a year's supply of Viagra was an original flourish on the part of bid officials. Two Salt Lake Olympic organizers were subsequently indicted on federal bribery and conspiracy charges.

Emblematic of an entrenched culture of corruption within the Olympic hierarchy, the gift-giving scandal set the stage for a series of shady real estate deals that enriched several wealthy businessmen. Billionaire oilman Robert Earl Holding, a member of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) for the 2002 Olympics, used his high-powered political connections to secure Congressional approval of a lucrative land exchange that overrode federal environmental laws. Holding acquired 1378 acres at the base of the Snowbasin ski resort from the U.S Forest Service, and Congress gave him carte blanche to develop the region. Congress also pitched in a $15 million subsidy for an access road to Holding's resort. From that point on, to use a ski metaphor, it was downhill for the natural environment.

Pristine mountain wilderness soon morphed into condos, restaurants, and ski runs. Parking lots encroached upon riverbed areas, degrading trout habitat and discharging waste run-off into the watershed. As approved by Congress, these developments were exempt from all the usual public review required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The waiver was justified, according to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, in order to facilitate the staging of the Winter Olympics. But critics contend that the public was hoodwinked. "No land swap or other similar venture was necessary to stage the Games," says Howard Peterson, a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee's site selection team that evaluated Snowbasin as a venue for ski race competitions.