Rumor has it construction is going to be in the millions and investors are coming far and wide to inspect the property and dream of the dollars to be made.

One hopes that this is indeed hidden from the lake -- one need only travel as far as Lake Tahoe to determine for oneself the nature of the backend of a Ski Resort -- it'll make the scar on Little Dyer look like a good time.

One hears the locals tell tales like "Gee, it would be great if someone would come in here and build condos," but such a wonderful occurence would never happen. Right now all the money is in buttery property like club-accessible golf courses like Foxwood and the sort. Eventually, yes, there will be some ramshackle housing for the locals, but it will look like the sort of rough apartments you see in Chico, CA or else up in Tahoe.

This is not a fair trade for the people of the valley, and one cannot help but wonder if the plans at LVR include revamping that area for the ski tourist. What will become of those near-dead places at the crossroads? One would expect new plenty for them, but every time a Little Norway or a Big Springs shuts down to make way for such expansion, the lake becomes a little more empty and a little more showtime.

Was that string of redwood-clad singlewides, the ones that poke out like a compound into the basin such a good idea?

Will the old guys who made this valley, the hobby fishermen -- the compulsive fishermen be driven away? The closure of LVR ends the summer holidays of several hundred families, good people who ate in your restaurants and shopped at your stores. These condo dwellers will gobble up that land and you'll see them touch the shores once in a blue moon. Maybe rent it out to a bunch of tourists who won't care about the area the way you and I do.

One hopes the county board of supervisors in Plumas County has their heads about them. Every time I see a "Save Lake Almanor," I think how pathetically true that is. I wonder how many summers Plumas Pines will be available before it is more attractive as a full-scale resort. How long it will be until Prattville gets lost again, buried under this time by collosal cabins.

Only time will tell whether this has been a worthwhile trade for the county to make, approving these sales. Open land, once gone, is mostly gone forever. The scars of our bad decisions will last us a long, long time up there.

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