Skiing as an adventure sport and the business that comes with it, have always been a lucrative option for mountain based resorts and hotels. But in the past few years, due to increased global warming and green house effect, melting snow caps have become a huge problem for both environment and the adventurers. An Arizona based holiday resort ‘Arizona Snowbowl’ has come up with a potent but controversial solution to the same problem.
Very soon, they will be covering the mountains with self made snow – created out of treated sewage water. The decision had an immediate polarizing effect on the local people and the authorities. This is not the first time the resort has proposed anything this radical, even in the 1970’s they came up with the same idea but were refuted. The current movement to go green and the bank of study to prove what they are doing is safe, have made their case stronger. Snowbowl is citing an environmental protection agency report, as one of its sources. According to the report, the treated sewage water is safe for humans. As a result, Snowbowl has already started construction work on a 15 mile long pipeline. Through which they will receive 1.5 gallons of water from city of Flagstaff.
On the other side of the debate, some environmentalists are not satisfied with EPA’s findings. They claim to have studies by US geological survey and university of phoenix, going contrary to ‘treated water is safe’ assumption. They further add that treated water also contains high doses of carcinogens, industrial pollutants and other harmful chemicals. Some reports also predict that this can bring a change in the soil chemistry and can be severely harmful for the natural habitat of the region. Another set of opposition is coming from the tribal population of the region. The Hopi tribe has filed a lawsuit against the resort claiming that the land is sacred to them and it should not be polluted with sewage water.
Via: Discovery
