Weeks before the snow guns at the Arizona Snowbowl ski area are set to begin blowing artificial snow made from sewage effluent ? a focus of a 10-year legal battle ? the Hopi tribe has mounted a new challenge, arguing that the plan could jeopardize the survival of a fragile plant.
Snowbowl sits on national forest land about an hour from the Grand Canyon. Before approving the resort?s snow-making plan, the United States Forest Service conducted a lengthy environmental review and concluded that the fragile alpine tundra would not be adversely affected because endangered and threatened plants would be at a safe distance from the snow guns.
The latest lawsuit, filed last week by the Hopi in federal court in Washington, contends that the review failed to account for the effect that drifting and blowing snow would have on the San Francisco groundsel, which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Calling this ?a critical oversight,? it seeks a federal injunction requiring the Forest Service to ensure that the wastewater snow is not used.
The San Francisco Peaks groundsel, an ankle-high plant with tiny, yellow flowers that is also known as ragwort, grows only on the San Francisco Peaks. The Hopi say that a review carried out for the tribe by an environmental consulting firm found that ?snow overspray and drift can transport contaminants found in the reclaimed wastewater as well as additional moisture and nutrients.? With moderate winds, the wastewater snow could travel as far as 1,000 meters (3,280 feet), the firm?s report said.
J.R. Murray, Snowbowl?s general manager, described the suit as ?a last-ditch effort to try to stop us? and said that the ski area expected to prevail.
The effort to block the snow-making plan has drawn support from environmental groups. ?Ski area profits aren?t worth the extinction of this lovely little flower,? said Taylor McKinnon, the public lands campaigns director for the Center for Biological Diversity.
As I?ve reported previously, the water used to make the snow, which will be pumped directly from the city of Flagstaff?s sewage treatment plant 14 miles away, contains trace levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals including hormones, antibiotics, antidepressants, pharmaceuticals and steroids as well as antibiotic-resistant genes. There is fierce debate over whether such compounds are harmful to human and environmental health in trace amounts.
Other tactics in the decade-long battle to prevent the snow-making that have included hunger strikes and protests in which activists have chained themselves to bulldozers on the mountain. The Hopi are among 13 Native American tribes that consider the mountain sacred and argue that the wastewater snow will pollute it.
Many ski resorts say that because of a gradual decline in annual snowfall, they need to make artificial snow to stay in business. However, some question whether the snow-making plan ? which involved clear-cutting 74 acres of forest to make room for new lifts, roads, and parking lots ? is a wise use of public land.
For now, Arizona Snowbowl is pressing ahead. ?We?re wrapping up construction and plan to have snow by Christmas,? Mr. Murray said.
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