The Environmental Problems Caused by Snowmaking on Ski Resorts By Frankie Chapin

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The Environmental Problems Caused by Snow-making
on Ski Resorts By Frankie Chapin
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Snow-making A Brief History

• Dr. Ray Ringer accidentally created man-made snow
  while studying the effects of rime icing on the
  intake of a jet engine.
• Tey Manufacturing was responsible for the
  beginning of designing snow-making machines and
  receiving patents for such work.
• Wayne Pierce was issued the first patent for a
  snow-making machine.
• Alden Hanson created the new technology in
  snow-making, a fan snow-maker was created.
• The first snow-making machines were installed in
  Killington Ski Resort in the early 1960s.

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Snow-making history cont.

• Alden Hanson created the new technology in
  snow-making, a fan snow-maker was created.
• The first snow-making machines were installed in
  Killington Ski Resort in the early 1960s.

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Snow-makings use of Water

• Using Sunday River Ski Resort in Maine
• Their system can convert up to 9,000 gallons of
  water per minute to snow
• Thats enough water to fill a standard 16x32 in
  ground swimming pool in just over two minutes

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Snow-makings water usage cont.

• That much snow can make more than 3,100 cubic
  feet of snow each minute could cover a football
  field, including the endzones with over 3 and a
  half feet of snow
• Sunday River still only uses about 20 percent of
  the water that the state lets them use

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Sunday Rivers water usage cont.

• The amount of water used by Sunday River to make
  snow in a season is less than the amount of water
  needed to make 2 feet of natural snow storm.

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Snow-makings negative impacts

• The river flow of the water that is used for
  snow-making is reduced about 2-9 percent at the
  time of withdrawl.
• Increasing the amount of snow creates more water
  in the spring season

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The Permitting Process

• Every major developmental project in Vermont
  requires a series of permits from state, regional
  and local authorities
• Act 250 Permit, from the District Environmental
  Commission, determines the environmental impacts
  and regulates the development of private land in
  the state of Vermont
• People compare this permit to FERC dam licensing.
  It is very long, and hard and takes a lot of
  environmental research.
• The Fish and Wildlife Service is also required to
  make sure that snow-making isnt harming the fish
  in their habitat

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Snow-making is not that bad

• Throughout the 25 years of snow-making in
  Vermont, there has been no evidence of any loss
  in fish population
• 50 percent of the water used in snow-making is
  returned to the ground within 30 days
• 95 percent of the water used is returned by May.
  

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Snow-making and running out of water

• People worry about running out of water because
  of snow-making and this is not true
• Most of the water used is returned to the ground
  after use
• As long as the Ski Resorts go through the correct
  permits necessary, snow-making is a safe and not
  that bad of a thing to do