Billionaire’s Ski Resort Using Wastewater For Snowmaking
A private ski resort in Montana which requires all residents to be at least multi-millionaires and has listed several famous billionaires among them (members are reputed to include Bill Gates and multi-millionaire Justin Timberlake) has begun using purified wastewater into snow.
Using wastewater to make snow is not new and ski areas in Australia have won eco awards for recycling snow in this way. At least a dozen US resorts are believed do it, but there was a 20 year battle for it to be permitted at the Arizona Snowbowl, this time with environmentalists teaming up with indigenous peoples to object to the concept of using snow made from purified water that had once carried human excreta on mountain peaks sacred to their ancestors. Environmental groups argued that, among other things, adding extra snow on fragile environments wasn’t a good idea either. After many counter court cases the ski area finally won.
Those in favour of wastewater snowmaking argue the purified water used to make snow I’d actually cleaner than stuff that comes out of lakes and rivers and we just need to get over any fears of face-planting in it. They also argue that if you’re going to use water resources for snowmaking, best to use recycled than fresh water sources. Yellowstone says the decision has helped them make more snow and open more terrain this winter than would have been possible otherwise.
The Yellowstone Club has been piloting the wastewater snowmaking project since 2011 but got permission to expand it from US government environmental bodies a few years ago.
However to comply with its permit, the Yellowstone Club has had to put up signs warning skiers not to eat the snow.
The ski slopes of the Yellowstone Club are connected to those of one of the largest ski areas in North America, Big sky. The combined area of the two is by some measures actually larger than the largest public ski area on the continent, Whistler Blackcomb, however only the super-rich and their guests are allowed to ski the whole area, skiers based in Big Sky are not permitted to ski on the Yellowstone Club’s slopes.
