Artificial Snow From Sewerage Waste Water?

I don't think waste water is used for snow making in Europe (it would cost too much to pump it up the mountains) and chemical / biological additives are banned.

I think I idea here is to treat the ski resorts waste water, hold it locally in a reservoir and use this water for snow making... Ideally creating a sustainable system for snowmaking so as to avoid depleting water that is used for drinking.

In recent years there has astronomical amounts of controversy regarding ski resorts and their "attempts to play God" by creating snow to spray upon their resorts in order to open up ski resorts independent of natural snowfall. Snow, as many of us know, does not just fall out of the sky on a regular basis. The conditions have to be right as well as there has to be the moisture in the air to produce the precipitation. While many areas do not have the same climates as others, they have to improvise. This improvising comes in the form of making snow. While many would see this as harmless, it creates a huge dilemma amongst the people native to the land being sprayed with the snow. As with both real snow and artificial snow, there has to be a source of water, which is what sparks the controversy. The issue at hand both from a cultural standpoint and from scientific standpoint is what are they really spraying on the mountains and is this something that should be allowed. Those who enjoy skiing on this artificial snow should have an acknowledgment to both sides and to have respect for those who are against making artificial snow rather than show ignorance for those whom are against it. Because there is not always an abundance of extremely cold weather and heavy snowfall around the world, some ski resorts have to improvise. The snow blower is the solution to this. The snow blower allows the resorts to artificially make as much snow as they like to although this again is weather permitting. In order for the resorts to make snow they need the right temperatures to do so. The resorts need the outside temperature to be less than thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, or zero degrees Celsius. "Snowmaking shortcuts nature's process. There's no evaporation phase; rather than condensing in the sky, water is pumped in liquid form from a local water source" (Sherwood). From the local water source, wherever this may be, it is pumped through a various system of underground pipes. This water is eventually pumped up the slopes into the snow guns/cannons. Once the water is pumped inside the gun it is met with compressed air that is "highly pressurized" (Sherwood). The compressed air shatters the now freezing stream of water being pumped through the snow blower turns this stream into thousand of tiny particles and launches them out in front of the gun. Unlike real snow, this artificial snow does not have much time to freeze nor collect additional moisture before hitting the ground.
Snowbowl, a ski resort in Northern Arizona, uses "snow made from 100% treated sewage on the……San Francisco Peaks" (indigenousaction.org). On "November 28, 2014, more than 50 people rallied and marched as Arizona Snowbowl Ski area opened with snow made from 100% treated sewage"(indigenousaction.org). People from the surrounding areas on this day came to the resort in order to support residents of Flagstaff, Arizona who were within their rights to protest such a thing. The owner of Snowbowl promoted this day as 'White Friday' because in modern culture, this Friday following Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday. "It saddens me deeply that respect alone did not stop reclaimed waste water from being sprayed on the peaks"(Preston). It was noted by some, who attended the 'White Friday', that this artificial snow was sprayed "all over picnic tables at the lodge eating area which a week later had melted down to this strange gray powder, coating everything. On opening day I witnessed at least 50 people eating lunch in this stuff. They don't even have respect for their own customers" (Preston). "This is beyond environmental racism, this is an ongoing act of cultural genocide" (Benally) "the US Forest Service, Snowbowl, and City of Flagstaff have made it clear that a couple of small ski runs covered with a foot of treated sewage and marginal economic profit are more important than the cultures of 13 Indigenous Nations, public health and the ecological integrity of the holy San Francisco Peaks" (Benally). Because of Snowbowl showing complete ignorance for the peoples' concerns, many boycotts have started because of this. Many march through the downtown area of Flagstaff protesting what is going on at the resort, carrying signs saying things such as "you say recreation, we say desecration" as well as "when Mother Earth is under attack what do we do? Fight back". These protests can be seen almost every single year since the start of the use of artificial snow at the Snowbowl Ski area.
This dilemma not only has cultural aspects to it but also has a scientific aspects and impacts as some would say. When looking for people with personal connections to this ongoing problem, I turned to a name mentioned to me by a classmate. The name my classmate suggested was Klee Benally. When looking into this name I came across his father's story; Jones Benally. Jones Benally is a Navajo man in his nineties who still works as a Navajo healer. For those who do not know, religious ceremonies conducted by someone such as a Navajo healer are used to aid in things such as mental health, physical health, family health, etc. and they use plants from the local area in these ceremonies and different forms of prayer. To this day "Benally still works as a Navajo healer, regularly collecting medicinal plants from the San Francisco Peaks, just outside Flagstaff" (Finnerty) where Arizona Snowbowl can be found. "He travels the Navajo Reservation, where he was born in Black Mesa, visiting the sick and praying with them in their homes and in what he describes as modern hospitals" (Finnerty). In recent years as he has continued his practices, he becomes more and more alarmed at what implications this artificial snow as well as the run off that comes from the snow when it melts, will have on the plants he uses. "In creation, it is said the mountains were placed here by the holy people," Benally said. "I collect medicinal plants and vegetation from the San Francisco Peaks because it's very powerful" (Finnerty). Many of the twelve tribes that inhabit the area, including the Navajo people, say that this water contaminates and devalues not only the entire mountain but also their religious practices. The devaluation of these practices poses a major threat to the Navajo tribe due to the fact that in recent years there sadly has been a rise in depression and mental health problems amongst the Navajo people, who seek out there treatment through these ceremonies and prayers that require the use of the local plants and the local land which includes the San Francisco peaks. Benally is worried greatly about "what the process does to the Peaks and to his people. He is not reassured that Flagstaff says the water is drinkable by Environmental Protection Agency standards" (Finnerty). Having visited the Flagstaff local sewage treatment plant a few years back and seen all the various steps the water goes through in order to purify and decontaminate it as well as been told by various staff members at this plant that they reassure us the water is drinkable, I would not drink this water unless my life depended on it. They even tell guests up at Snowbowl that they should make sure their children, as well as, themselves avoid eating the man made snow.
Whether Snowbowl realizes it or not something as simple as spraying artificial snow upon their slopes can have huge rhetorical implications amongst the community. While Arizona's Snowbowl does not intend for their message to be one of desecration to the peoples' land, unfortunately their choice of using treated sewage to produce their artificial snow has evoked many physical and verbal responses throughout the community because things such as this have become meaningful to community members through because of their linguistic depiction. My only hope for this dilemma is rather than Snowbowl showing what has been noted as utter disregard for the peoples' concerns, they show acknowledgement of what they are doing and the message that is being sent out. In the hopefully near future I would like nothing more than to see either some sort of compromise met in order to satisfy both parties, or Snowbowl choosing a different source of water as to not harm the indigenous people and their land more than they have.

Wow! How to politicise the nonpolitical. Some people really do have too much time on their hands.

Oh dear I don't have time to read all that. I have followed the snow-from-wastewater story for a long time though. There are, I believe, a few dozen ski areas around the world that do it - most in US and Australia. Public attitudes markedly different between Australia and US, former "Gee, great idea!" latter "Urghhh, that's yucky!" One in Oz actually won a major eco award for doing it and saving water resources. Those in favour of the concept say former wastewater is so purified its cleaner than river/lake water used for snowmaking everywhere else. Same stuff used in schools and hospitals in Arizona. There was a 10+ year battle by the resort in the case our friend is writing about up and down the US courts system. The final case was that the snow being made of former waste products insulted the ground sacred to indigenous people in the area. The ski area eventually won that last case and started making the wastewater snow. It seems to be doing OK and has installed as new chairlift every year since.

Just found this one.

Some may have objections to snow making there is the consideration that skiing as most of us know it has a large man made element. Unless you hike up and ski in the back country the likelihood is that you will be skiing on bashed pistes having been hoisted up by a ski lift. Even then your ski's, boots and clothing are unlikely to be "green" so let's not pretend skiing is squeaky clean from an environmental point. However it provides jobs and recreation in a mountain environment that might be less well protected if it didn't need to be kept nice for wintersports. Intensive forestry, mining and the like spring to mind.

Ski resorts often have the benefit of being in mountainous regions with relatively clean hydro-electric energy to power the lifts and snow cannons. Making snow is not in itself a bad thing if it helps to keep the pistes open with water storage and energy that has limited impact on the environment. Properly treated water from sewage management should be safe. If it's not been treated then clearly none of us would want to be exposed to it any more than we would like to take a bath in a septic tank!

Concur with JL, ski industry is horribly unsustainable in its water usage so sounds like a great idea. Just because has potentially been poorly executed doesn't mean basic concept was bad.

Snowmaking only borrows the water, after use it is returned to the environment more or less as was. Where possible the lift companies build storage reservoirs in the ski areas (Austria has about 480) and pump the water from these to the snow cannons and lances, in the spring it melts and returns to the environment. This is a typical layout:



I doubt that resorts in the alps would ever contemplate using water from sewage treatment plants. Many of them are located down in the valleys so it would be much too expensive to pump it back up to the resorts and the local populations would probably go berserk if it's use was even mentioned.

It does require quite a lot of electricity, around 3.5 kWh per cubic metre. Some of this is comes from HEP plants, but as their output is drastically reduced during the winter (no meltwater to feed them) a lot of it comes from other sources. Snowmaking also produces a fair amount of CO2, the production of the amount required to cover a hectare of piste is reckoned to produce around a tonne of CO2