Sewage Snow: Coming Soon to a Ski Slope Near You?

25 Aug 2011 08:03 #1 by ScienceChic
First, poop-burgers, now sewage snow? We're recycling with a vengeance!

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011 ... a-snowbowl
Sewage Snow: Coming Soon to a Ski Slope Near You?
—By Chris Kassar
| Tue Aug. 23, 2011

If owners of a ski resort in Flagstaff, Arizona, get their way, skiiers will soon be gliding over artificial snow made from 180 million gallons of sewage effluent. Yes, you read that right: snow made from recycled poop water.

The Environmental Protection Agency says that reclaimed water is safe for humans—as long as it's properly treated. But since the Forest Service approved the project, environmentalists, community members and Native Americans in the region have mounted opposition to the project, citing environmental and health concerns. The US Geological Survey has found that even "clean" wastewater "can contain a wide range of organic chemicals, and studies conducted by Dr. Catherine Propper, a professor of biological sciences at Northern Arizona University, found that Flagstaff's treated sewage water contains pharmaceuticals, hormones, industrial pollutants, carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. A 2007 study from the US Agricultural Research Service found that the environmental and public health impacts of using reclaimed sewage effluent for irrigation "are largely unknown"—not exactly a ringing endorsement for anyone who wants to go out and ski the slopes.


"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill

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25 Aug 2011 10:47 #2 by Martin Ent Inc
Yo man ya shreddin the gnar brown today.

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25 Aug 2011 11:57 #3 by Grady
Many years ago I skied on a "hill" in Michigan that during the rest of the year was a landfill. :biggrin:

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25 Aug 2011 12:01 #4 by Local_Historian
Frank Zappa told us years ago to not eat that yellow snow. Wonder what he'd think about skiing on it.

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25 Aug 2011 12:19 #5 by BadgerKustoms
Just got an image in my head of a conversation between two ski junkies... "Dude I just got my season pass and hepatitis shot, let's do this!!!"











Badger

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25 Aug 2011 12:23 #6 by Wayne Harrison
It gives the term "ski runs" a whole new meaning.

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25 Aug 2011 14:12 #7 by Grady
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and you can't miss

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25 Aug 2011 17:37 #8 by Martin Ent Inc
I'm shreddin the gnar brown today dude.

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26 Aug 2011 10:09 #9 by Wily Fox aka Angela
we have to keep getting smarter about using water in whatever form it comes in, especially in drier regions of the world. For example, the space station recycles urine for drinking water. Of course the filtration process is "robust".

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26 Aug 2011 12:47 #10 by Wayne Harrison
We are so far behind other countries on using this technology to save water... We seem to think we have an unlimited supply.

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