"We don't beat our chests about it - it's what we ought to be doing," he says. "But it's something we take seriously. There's an attention to detail. And we do it every day."

Yet Deer Valley manages only a "C" grade in an annual report card put out by a collection of environmental groups known as the Ski Area Citizens' Coalition. And a recent study assessing the overall environmental record of ski areas in the western United States concludes that the resorts are more about gloss than substance when it comes to addressing "green" issues.

Welcome to the paradox of the ski business - where you can recycle and test all you want, but prepare to be harpooned if you build new runs, add more condos or increase your snowmaking capacity.

"On the one hand, the resorts are doing some really good environmental work. On the other, you're seeing so much expansion into what were once wild areas that it's hard to get excited about their [environmental] record," says Lisa Smith, executive director of the Salt Lake City-based Save Our Canyons.

"If they're going to be a real part of the community," she adds, "they have to be part of the ecosystem, and not just think about the people from New York and New Jersey flying in."

In response to the criticisms, the National Ski Areas Association in 2000 adopted an environmental charter called the Sustainable Slopes Program (SSP). Its stated purpose is to serve as a collector for "best practices" among ski area owners and operators, and to gauge resorts' progress and lay out future goals through annual reports.

But the program hasn't escaped the wrath of observers. A study released earlier this month by University of Colorado-Denver professor Peter de Leon and George Washington University colleague Jorge Rivera calls the SSP window dressing that some resorts use to establish environmental credentials that may not be earned.

"In a sense, we should all be grateful that the resorts have really begun to pay attention to the environmental concerns of the general public," says de Leon. "But the Sustainable Slopes Program, for all its good intentions, hasn't really met the goals it has set.

"Part of it is a lack of specific goals," he continues. "We didn't have a way to calibrate that, exactly. Everybody says they did something; the question was, what have you done?"

How to prove it: In some cases, it's tough to argue that point. Many resorts lay out detailed accomplishments in the SSP reports, others not so much. For 2004, Bogus Basin in Idaho reported it set up a display "about environmental awareness and the Clean Water Act" that was highlighted by a week-long display in the Idaho Capitol rotunda.

It also played host to a three-hour symposium for the state's environmental educators - on the Sustainable Slopes Program.

The study's authors are particularly critical of the SSP for its lack of oversight. There is no standard and there are no regulations to follow, and no penalties for noncompliance.

But resort operators counter that the very premise of the Sustainable Slopes Program has been misconstrued.

"Sustainable Slopes is one more quorum, a platform for conversation among ski operators," says Deer Valley's Wheaton. "As area managers come together, they can identify different issues and challenges. The SSP is a forum, an ideas exchange."

Growing pains: One fact remains: the Sustainable Slopes Program has brought the resorts little, if any, closer to bridging the divide with their environmental critics. And for one simple reason: development.

Resorts such as Deer Valley will continue to pull average, and even poor, grades from groups like the Citizens' Coalition because their long-term master plan calls for continued growth. A map in the lobby of Deer Valley's base lodge shows plans for nine new lifts and further expansion into the Mayflower area of the resort, which faces the Jordanelle Reservoir.

Along with added lifts and runs will come fallen trees and more snowmaking.

Additional terrain also will probably spawn more housing development, as well as new lodge and maintenance facilities. All are anathema to environmentalists.

"The attraction of expanding is you've got real estate in those areas and you wind up with a spillover effect," says Smith of Save Our Canyons. "Sprawl is definitely one of the biggest impacts felt by wildlife. Yet it is becoming increasingly hand-in-hand at the ski resorts."

Not all ski resorts. Sundance, for instance, annually gets high marks from the Ski Area Citizens Coalition. Why? It has not expanded, it has added only minimal snowmaking capabilities and it has encouraged, and in some cases required, environmentally friendly practices among its surrounding residential community.

"I don't know a lot about what's happening at the other resorts, but I do know that Sundance is a little different," says resort spokeswoman Julie Mack. "Recreation is a big part of our focus, but so is art and so is the environment. We want to grow enough so that the business model works - in other words, grow as little as possible and be successful - and then preserve the rest. Smaller, we think, is better."

Like many resorts, Sundance has an extensive recycling program, but goes a step further by recycling glass that is turned into glasses and plates and other items by a group of Mexican artisans.

In the past decade, the resort also has worked at retiring all of the surrounding U.S. Forest Service grazing permits - essentially creating a conservation easement. It also reintroduced bighorn sheep on Mount Timpanogos three years ago.

Deer Valley also recycles extensively, and like Sundance and other resorts, purchases wind power through Utah Power's "Blue Skies" program. Through its water testing, seeding program and monitoring of its trees and wildlife, Wheaton insists his mountain "is in better shape than when we found it."

For those and other reasons, Wheaton and other resort operators are annually annoyed when the Ski Area Citizens' Coalition report card is issued. And some get more annoyed than others.

In a February 2003 memo to Western ski resort operators, a National Ski Areas Association official urged ski areas to consider boycotting the survey on which the coalition bases its annual findings.

"In my view, responding to the survey lends credibility to it, and the more credible it is, the more media attention it will attract," memo author Michael Berry wrote.

Wheaton says he still responds to the coalition's queries, but complains the results are often wanting.

"We make every effort to be accurate so people can look at the facts and make a well-informed decision [about where to ski]," he says. "But there's always inaccurate information there. That's where it's really lacking."

Communication problems: That may be true, but the biggest problem is language. Ski resorts and their environmental monitors really don't speak the same language.

"Both groups are very committed and do what they think is right," says study author de Leon. "The problem is, they haven't ever really hammered out what is right and problematic, so they both end up responding to their own constituents."

jbaird@sltrib.com