The problem with snow making.

Research material
http://www.powder.com/stories/opinion/the-problem-with-fake-snow/

Ugh....

If people show interest in this topic I'll give some local input on the Snowbowl controversy but in all honesty I've been over the whole thing for years now.

Snowmaking in the arid and volatile southwest does have potential to be a good thread topic. I imagine it's much less of an impact in the north east.

Not very well written at all. And horribly sensationalistic. First, it's not as though most of the west is making snow after Thanksgiving. I just lived in a Colorado for nine weeks and didn't see a gun anywhere. Second, isn't Snowbowl the only mountain spraying, er, effulence or whatever you call it? So why not just focus on them, if that's your problem. Not exactly a big destination resort, btw.

Not a well thought out article in my opinion:

1. The effluent that Snowbowl is using (as clean as it is) was going to be introduced into the environment regardless. It's not as if wastewater is being produced exclusively for the purposes of Snowbowl, after all. And if it's not being made into snow it'll be immediately discharged directly into rivers or streams.

2. The author describes Snowbowl as a "desert ski area."  With an average annual snowfall in the hundreds of inches, that characterization is simply wrong and calls into question the quality of the research behind the article.

I will agree that snowmaking takes tremendous amounts of energy, but it's becoming more efficient every year for those mountains that invest in the latest technology. The capital, energy and labor costs involved are really the biggest arguments against snowmaking, and that's something for the mountains to evaluate on their own.

I seem to recall that there were or are other ski areas spraying effluent, but not on the slopes, they were spraying it off into areas not used for skiing as a way to reuse the water. I also seem to recall some research that although energy intensive, snow making has some positive environmental aspects by essentially caching water for later use in the dryer seasons.

That article is filled with false BS.  Just a butt hurt "old school" skier who doesn't want to see mountains improve and be profitable.  Want to ski consistently?  Then you need snowmaking, plain and simple.

I read an article earlier on the reclaimed water being used for snowmaking at Arizona Snow Bowl.  It's not sewage, it's been treated to very high standards, but not quite good enough to drink.  The same stuff is already used to water golf courses and farms.  Killington uses a similar system to flush toilets.

On the ec, snowmaking water is mostly claimed from a nearby river.  It's just going to wash right back into the same river at the end of the season, so what does it matter if they store it on the mountain.

I don't know, that thing about the frogs is pretty convincing. Maybe the effluent was going back into the system eventually, but this is literally spraying it all over the place.

It's not like they increased the amount of effluent that goes back into the system.  How is spraying it on a mountain to wash back down in the spring any worse than dumping it directly into a river.

I'm a guy who will go to the mountain to ski one good trail.  After a rain/freeze if there is one or two trails with ongoing snowmaking, I'm in.  If those guns are blowing effluent I'd think twice.

How safe is it?  Couldn't find any info in it googlin.

snoloco wrote

On the ec, snowmaking water is mostly claimed from a nearby river.  It's just going to wash right back into the same river at the end of the season, so what does it matter if they store it on the mountain.

That doesn't mean it has no effect

http://www.outsideonline.com/1904791/nasty-environmental-impact-making-snow

Ski resorts often make snow using nearby natural streams or lakes, but that doesn't mean the water is clean. Sykes points to how, in Colorado, water pulled for snowmaking from the Snake River is tainted with zinc, copper, lead and other metals that seep from old mining claims.

Even if water that is extracted for snowmaking is clean, the act of extracting it leads to other "externalities," he says. For one thing, pulling clean water upstream from sources of contamination, such as mining claims, removes the benefits of dilution that the water would have otherwise provided.

Reducing stream flow could have other consequences as well. "Another extraction issue is that you're removing sizable amounts of water from streams in the fall, which is a key time for aquatic life," says Sykes.

http://www.uvm.edu/~bwemple/pubs/shanley_wemple_law.pdf

High-elevation mountain environments are among the world's least
resilient ecosystems. The very qualities that draw people to mountain
ecosystemsr ender them susceptiblet o adversee ffects from development.
Thesec haracteristicsin clude: the steeps lopest hat attracts kiers and hikers,
but promote erosion;t he cool temperaturesth at bring abundants nows,b ut
which create a harsh environment for vegetation; the thin soils that give
way to spectacular ock outcrops,b ut provide little buffer to store water or
pollutants;a nd the beautiful mountains treamsw, hoseb alanceo f pools and
riffles is easily upset by inputs of too much water or too much sediment or
both. In some areas, such as the Rocky Mountains of the western United
States, alpine areas are the prime source of water for downstream use by
wildlife and humans, and maintaining its quantity and quality is imperative.

It's perfectly clean water, just not quite good enough to drink.  I don't drink the snowmaking water, so it doesn't really matter.  It's also used to water golf courses in many areas.

Snowmaking in the West is entirely different than on the ec.  It's used only as a way to extend the season and prevent people from cancelling Christmas vacations.  Some November/December's are bad and others good and it highly effects profitability for Christmas.  Have snowmaking and you're almost guaranteed to be profitable for Christmas out west.  Steamboat can open all but 2 lifts with snowmaking, and they want to make it all but one.

On the ec, it's some ski area's entire brand.  Hunter comes to mind here.  A powerful snowmaking system and consistently good conditions are what they market and do business on.

snoloco wrote

It's perfectly clean water, just not quite good enough to drink.  I don't drink the snowmaking water, so it doesn't really matter.  It's also used to water golf courses in many areas.

Your first sentence seems to contradict itself.  Perfectly clean does not equal not good enough to drink in my pea brain.

And you think you don't drink snow making water?  How so?  Because you aren't drinking it out of the guns?  Snow melts and flows through streams or seeps back down to the water table, which you drink, at some point.  It's actually kind of hard to control where it goes.  So your next argument that the pollutants may go back where they came from or that the ground may leech them out is going to be absolute bullshit.

Would you drink swimming pool water?  I wouldn't, but it's perfectly clean for its purpose.  It's just not to be used to for drinking.

Would you use bottled water to fill a swimming pool?  No.  It's for drinking, and not cost effective to purify all water to drinking standards, in an application where it will never be used for drinking.

The effluent is going somewhere no matter what and any pollutants in it will get into the water table like you said before.  If there is stuff in it that shouldn't be there, then it's a problem with the municipality and the sewage treatment plant, not the ski area that is using some of the water.

Golf courses are beautiful, and I've been known to waste a few hours walking around a few, but they are ecological poison. Think a huge landscaping project with all of the chemicals needed to grow and fight weeds, or, we should say, the natural growth.

Well swimming pool water is purified more than most bottled water.  And tap water from a WWM facility probably more closely resembles diluted swimming pool water than bottled spring water.

It really depends on what pollutants and in what concentrations.  It's not a simple answer.

Back to your original pose, which is perhaps more realistic but would you drink water from the lakes and streams in the Adirondacks or Catskills without filtration?

That "peferctly clean" water is full of pollutants from rain water, and past mining and paper mill operations, some worse than others, as well as biological pollutants.  And certainly a Giardia cyst will knock you out quicker than will Mercury poisoning.

Water being clean and safe for humans doesn't mean it's clean and safe for the environment.  And sometimes it is best to leave the pollutants where they are, rather than redistribute them into other sources of unpolluted water.

Again, not a simple answer.  Certainly not as simple as the financial reasoning that resorts use to blow snow.

Your drinking water has a list of pollutants as long as your arm and that's just the list its tested for. To be suitable to drink just means all of these are at concentration levels the DOH says is acceptable. Chlorination is used to kill bacteria and viruses, UV can also be used. Most municipalities draw from lakes or rivers and heavily treat because service water can have animal waiste and chemicals.

Ski areas need snow to open and most of it is going to be man-made in the east.  I can guarantee that Vail isn't overpriced because of snowmaking.

My belief is that Vail is making sticker price so high so that they can encourage people to buy online so they can lay off their ticket window attendants.  They want the highest dollars per visit value and will get it by any means possible, usually by nickel and diming their guests.

More snowmaking, more bubble chairs, more pph, more bulldozed runs.....more more more more more more

Since you think you're "too good" to ski at a resort, what does it matter if more ski areas "bubblize"?

snoloco wrote

Ski areas need snow to open and most of it is going to be man-made in the east.  I can guarantee that Vail isn't overpriced because of snowmaking.

My belief is that Vail is making sticker price so high so that they can encourage people to buy online so they can lay off their ticket window attendants.  They want the highest dollars per visit value and will get it by any means possible, usually by nickel and diming their guests.

I wasn't speculating Vails prices were based on snowmaking, but snowmaking does make them more money if they can extend their season.  From a business perspective it makes sense, of course.   But part of being an ethical business owner or engineer is understanding impacts.

Did you watch Jumbo Wild?  Granted it was a bit skewed in one direction but at least they did get footage from the lead architect, Oberto Oberti.

What did you think of his perspective of the project?  Did it perhaps seem a bit selfish and egotistical?  I'm not talking about what's legal.  I'm not talking about what is 'right'.  I'm talking purely in terms his goals and ambitions in regards to the people of the first nation and the environment.

This, fundamentally, is not much different.  Part of your job as a future engineer, project manager or business leader is to understand your ethical responsibilities to other humans, and to the environment.

We all pollute, we all make this planet worse off than it was, but you need to understand those impacts very well.  What you may do and your thoughts on these subjects may influence things far beyond your life.  How do you want to remembered?  As a Hitler, or a Roosevelt?