How depressing.
The supreme court rejected the appeal regarding snowmaking on the San Francisco Peaks. I'm not very involved in this issue, but I am against Snowbowl using reclaimed water to make snow on the mountain.
There's a matter of environmental impact -- you can't get everything out of treated effluent. What typically remains are pharmaceuticals, and given how many we take in this day and age, I don't think it's a great idea. The compounds in birth control pills, for example, could have a serious effect on species endemic to such a specialized area as the Peaks. There are plants and critters that exist only there and if they all become feminized they won't be around much longer.
There's also that pesky little issue of the Peaks being sacred to over 13 tribes in the region. Not like that's ever mattered in any question of Anglo development anywhere in this Land, but given the gravity of the function of the Peaks, perhaps this is a good time for it to be considered. I'm not as aware as I could be regarding the lore of the Peaks to everyone who holds them sacred. However, for the Hopi the Peaks are where the Kachinas live. Kachinas bring the moisture (which is pretty crucial to this area regardless of what paradigm you're living in) and if Humanity goes around making our own snow and plopping it right at their doorstep it, to say the least, is not the most respectful thing. I know a lot of people don't want to hear the religious arguments, but given how rapidly Western culture is destroying itself and its environment it may do us some good to consider respecting the ways and observances of a people who have thrived in this precarious place for a long time before us.
And then there's my beef. I really don't think we need any more reasons for stinking rich Phoenicians to buy any more fucking second homes here. Plain and simple. I don't care if they patronize the stores and restaurants. They are rude and inconsiderate, they reek of entitlement and, above all, they do not respect the land -- here or anywhere else. It's questionable that Snowbowl being able operate all season long would make that significant a difference in local revenue and whatever jobs it did create would likely be seasonal, demeaning service jobs that didn't pay shit (like most every other job here.) Why don't we improve some infrastructure or maybe build a solar or wind power plant if we want our locals to have jobs?
I don't want any more fools who dwell in climate controlled McMansions in an even drier desert getting lost within walking distance from their vacation cottage in the mountains because they didn't have the sense to get their bearings, remember that the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West, or to just not go out for their Adventure in the Woods when conditions aren't going to accommodate their total ignorance of anything natural. They maim our Forest with their four-wheelers. I don't want any more resources expended on their search and rescue when they don't have the sense to remember where they parked the damned things before they went wandering off. They have already shat where they eat and sleep and now they have been colonizing Flagstaff because it is a Charming Mountain Town with Four Seasons. I wish they'd all end up dead from exposure in the Woods, for all the good they do us.
There's a matter of environmental impact -- you can't get everything out of treated effluent. What typically remains are pharmaceuticals, and given how many we take in this day and age, I don't think it's a great idea. The compounds in birth control pills, for example, could have a serious effect on species endemic to such a specialized area as the Peaks. There are plants and critters that exist only there and if they all become feminized they won't be around much longer.
There's also that pesky little issue of the Peaks being sacred to over 13 tribes in the region. Not like that's ever mattered in any question of Anglo development anywhere in this Land, but given the gravity of the function of the Peaks, perhaps this is a good time for it to be considered. I'm not as aware as I could be regarding the lore of the Peaks to everyone who holds them sacred. However, for the Hopi the Peaks are where the Kachinas live. Kachinas bring the moisture (which is pretty crucial to this area regardless of what paradigm you're living in) and if Humanity goes around making our own snow and plopping it right at their doorstep it, to say the least, is not the most respectful thing. I know a lot of people don't want to hear the religious arguments, but given how rapidly Western culture is destroying itself and its environment it may do us some good to consider respecting the ways and observances of a people who have thrived in this precarious place for a long time before us.
And then there's my beef. I really don't think we need any more reasons for stinking rich Phoenicians to buy any more fucking second homes here. Plain and simple. I don't care if they patronize the stores and restaurants. They are rude and inconsiderate, they reek of entitlement and, above all, they do not respect the land -- here or anywhere else. It's questionable that Snowbowl being able operate all season long would make that significant a difference in local revenue and whatever jobs it did create would likely be seasonal, demeaning service jobs that didn't pay shit (like most every other job here.) Why don't we improve some infrastructure or maybe build a solar or wind power plant if we want our locals to have jobs?
I don't want any more fools who dwell in climate controlled McMansions in an even drier desert getting lost within walking distance from their vacation cottage in the mountains because they didn't have the sense to get their bearings, remember that the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West, or to just not go out for their Adventure in the Woods when conditions aren't going to accommodate their total ignorance of anything natural. They maim our Forest with their four-wheelers. I don't want any more resources expended on their search and rescue when they don't have the sense to remember where they parked the damned things before they went wandering off. They have already shat where they eat and sleep and now they have been colonizing Flagstaff because it is a Charming Mountain Town with Four Seasons. I wish they'd all end up dead from exposure in the Woods, for all the good they do us.