A vintage coal-fired steam engine pushes a passenger car up the Cog Railway to the summit of Mount Washington in 2017. Robert F. Bukaty / AP file
Jamie Sayen of Stratford is author of “You Had a Job for Life” (2018), an oral history of the Groveton paper mill. His grandmother, Natalie Bourne, would strenuously object to the unauthorized commercialization of the Bourne name.
On August 22nd in North Conway and the 23rd in Concord, the public can register opposition to the Cog Railway’s proposal to construct a $14 million luxury railway hotel just below the summit of Mt. Washington. Written comments can also be submitted by August 31.
The State of New Hampshire signed a memorandum of understanding with the Cog in May that legally binds it to support this environmentally destructive plan.
The Abenaki viewed New England’s highest mountain as a sacred place. Today, the summit is a paved-over, debris-littered, over-developed, congested mess.
Approximately 300,000 motorized visitors reach the summit annually via the Cog or the Auto Road. In summer, there are 5,000 daily visitors. The wastewater treatment plant is out of compliance with its permit.
The Cog proposes to build two 500-foot-long platforms at a memorial cairn erected where 20-year-old Lizzie Bourne perished in September 1855. “Lizzie’s Station” will consist of 18 Pullman-like cars. Half would provide sleeping quarters for 70 people. Five would serve meals and alcoholic beverages. The remaining cars would house bathrooms and high-end shopping. Lizzie’s Station will require the drilling of a new artesian well and the construction of a 16,000-foot-long wastewater pipeline to the Cog’s base station.
RSA 227-B:6 requires the state to protect the summit’s “unique flora and other natural resources.” The state is operating under a master plan written in 1970, before awareness of climate change. Directives from that master plan to identify and protect mountain flora and preserve summit environs remain unimplemented.
Mt. Washington is home to the largest and most significant tract of alpine tundra east of the Mississippi River. The state has conducted no monitoring of the impacts of congestion or climate change on fragile alpine flora and fauna. Due to climate change, the tree line in the Presidential Range has advanced uphill at a rate of about a foot a year over the past four decades. Alpine tundra area has diminished by about 4%, and could eventually be driven off Mt. Washington.
The March 4th announcement of the Lizzie Station Project caught the supervisor of the White Mountain National Forest, the major abutter of the Cog and State properties, by surprise. That day, Sarah Stewart, Commissioner of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, a participant in the secret negotiations with the Cog, expressed the hope that the Lizzie Station proposal would increase summit visitor numbers. (Vol. 3 ‘Timeline, Lizzie’s Station’)
The Lizzie proposal upended the Mount Washington Commission’s (MWC) work on a new master plan. Immediately, it sped up the process. On June 10, lacking a quorum, the MWC decided to release a draft plan for public comment.
Several commission members and public observers had demanded that the MWC establish a moratorium on new development and launch an independent, comprehensive environmental and climate assessment, before writing the new plan.
Elements of that assessment must include: the current status and potential threats to the alpine tundra, the threats posed by climate change, and a determination of the number of visitors the summit can handle without being degraded (its carrying capacity). On June 10, MWC Chairman, Senator Jeb Bradley, without any discussion, rejected these calls.
The July 5 draft master plan (MP) was written in ignorance of current ecological and climate conditions on Mount Washington and its summit. The draft MP does not mention the Lizzie Station proposal or call for a thorough assessment of its ecological and climate impacts. The draft is silent on requiring future environmental monitoring.
Two of the three public representative seats on the commission are currently vacant. No ecologists or climate scientists serve on the MWC. Several commission members, including the state and the Cog, have clear conflicts of interest.
The state relies on selling fast food and cheap souvenirs to fund park operations. The commission gave no serious consideration to limiting motorized visitors or hikers to reduce congestion, trampling, and carbon emissions.
The public is the true owner of both the state park at the summit and the surrounding White Mountain National Forest. 20,000 people signed a petition opposing further development of the summit region in the three weeks following the March announcement.
Here’s what you can do. Attend a public hearing or submit written comments. Tell the commission to reject the Lizzie Bourne Station development; conduct a thorough, independent, environmental and climate assessment of the summit region and all of Mt. Washington before starting the master plan; institute a complete moratorium on development until the completion of the environmental and climate assessment and master plan; and reject the entire July 5, 2022 draft master plan.
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