#Private ski resort plans to use sewage to make snow

A swanky private ski resort in Montana wants to use sewage as snow to prevent their ski season from going down the toilet.

The Yellowstone Club is applying for a permit to use treated wastewater to make fake snow for its ski slopes with the hope it’ll help open its winter season on time.

And it’ll also help use the increasing amount of wastewater at the club, whose members include Bill Gates and Justin Timberlake.

“It’s an outside-the-box idea,” Rich Chandler, environmental manager for the club, told the Associated Press. “But it also checks a lot of boxes.”

The Big Sky club, located near Yellowstone National Park would join about a dozen other clubs that already make their slopes flush with snow by using wastewater.

The practice remains controversial though because sewage treatment doesn’t remove pharmaceuticals, and traces of prescription drugs can make it into the snow. Once it melts, it can make its way into waterways.

A 2017 study by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization found that only half of the pharmaceutical compounds were removed in the water treatment process. It noted that evidence suggests some of the chemicals could affect human reproductive systems, too, just as studies have shown on aquatic life, according to the AP.

“Modern wastewater treatment plants mostly reduce solids and bacteria by oxidizing the water. They were not designed to deal with complex chemical compounds,” said Birguy Lamizana-Diallo, program management officer at the United Nations Environment Program and an expert on wastewater treatment.

A permit application is under review with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

The club said initially it would use the fake snow in November and December, in the milder months of its season.

With Post wires