Industry News
The ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club in Montana has applied for a permit to use sewage as snow.
The private ski resort, frequented by many of the world’s richest and most famous people, wants to use treated wastewater for snowmaking to help them start their season earlier. They are the first resort in Montana to apply for such a permit.
“It’s an outside-the-box idea. But it also checks a lot of boxes.”
– Rich Chandler, environmental manager for the club
The plan will also help the resort use the increasing amount of wastewater produced at the club and is supported by several habitat/conservation groups (Trout Unlimited, American Rivers, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Gallatin River Task Force, and the Gallatin Irrigators), as well as several entities in Big Sky including Big Sky Resort and the Big Sky Water and Sewer District.
Up to 80% of the treated wastewater used for the project would come from the Big Sky County Water and Sewer District, with the other 20% from the Yellowstone Club’s own wastewater treatment plant. Wastewater has so far been used to irrigate all four of the town’s golf courses, but as the region grows, more outlets for the wastewater will be required.
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A permit would let the club direct more than 25 million gallons of highly treated and disinfected wastewater toward snowmaking operations at the base of Eglise Mountain, reports The Bozeman Daily Chronicle. The snowmaking would create an 18-inch snow base over 55-skiable acres on the mountain in November and December.
The idea isn’t unique; the club would join about a dozen other resorts that use treated wastewater to aid snowmaking.
While, in theory, it sounds like a great idea, it does have its drawbacks in practice. The treatment of sewage water focuses on removing solids and bacteria but doesn’t remove pharmaceuticals that can find their way into sewage. As a result, traces of prescription drugs and pharmaceutical compounds could find their way into the fake snow and then into the waterways once it melts.
“Modern wastewater treatment plants mostly reduce solids and bacteria by oxidizing the water. They were not designed to deal with complex chemical compounds.”
– Birguy Lamizana-Diallo, program management officer at the United Nations Environment Program
The application remains under review with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.
The Yellowstone Club, also Yellowstone Ski Resort, is a private residential club, ski resort, and golf resort located in Montana. The Rocky Mountain ski and golf club is located in eastern Madison County, just west of Big Sky, Montana, south of Bozeman, and northwest of Yellowstone National Park. Membership reportedly costs a minimum of $250,000 to join, plus the cost of $5 million to $35 million for a mountainside home, plus annual dues of about $20,000. To maintain its exclusivity, membership is capped at just over 800 members.
Don’t eat yellow snow !
Sugarloaf has been doing this for 20-30 years. check out the Ripley’s believe it not episode about this.
Duh guy
But no jokes though?
Your smugness is straight from south park.
Smell another one
Yellowstone Club; Where the affluent meet the effluent.
That is funny!
Its called water treatment. Anyone living downstream from another City is drinking someone else’s shit.
Just dont run through the sprinklers!
This idea is the shit!