What do you think of this?
First: ew.
Second:
I’m not sure what’s worse, that they made that pun, or that I thought of it while I was reading the article, and was going to mention it.
Third: Even if it’s as clean as they say, the thought weirds me out. (Hi, Opal!)
We’ll have to keep an eye on this one and see how it goes over in the end.
And here I thought you were okay as long as you didn’t eat the yellow snow!
Would that creek be the one you’re often up without a paddle?
I’m a skier and I think that it is a good use of waste water.
As far as ick factor goes, it’s no worse than going canoeing downstream of an urban area. If the treatment is done properly, then it is not a big deal, but if the treatment is not done properly (e.g. storm overflow bypass), then there is a problem. Same would go for waste water spread as snow.
Some snow generation systems spray bacteria deliberately because the wee thingies help form up ice crystals at slightly warmer temperatures, letting the resort blow earlier in the season and during thaws. Check out SnoMax. http://www.yorksnow.com/products/snomax/
What’s ironic is that once treated waste water systems become more common, sooner or later one of them will end up actually contaminating the treated waste water with the SnoMax bateria.
Given the choice of skiing on natural or artificial snow, I strongly prefer natural snow, but that is simply due to the quality of the skiing surface, rather than ick factor.
Given in many countries drinking water out of taps is recycled sewage, this really isn’t so shocking.
I think the reason this story made such a big splash in Australia is because they don’t recycle drinking water there yet. The Sydney Olympic Village was one of the first new environmentally-designed developments with dual water systems: fresh for drinking, and recycled for garden water, etc. Actually both are fully potable for human consumption, but Aussies still seem to get the ick-factor when the “been through nine-different people’s body” thing about UK water is brought up.