Don't Eat The White Snow Either 236
loteck writes "An interesting article about an Australian ski resort that is converting human waste into freshly driven snow. The waste is converted "through a three-step purifying process of UV light filtration, ozonation and ultra-filtration", and they say it's "even cleaner than that made from nearby creek water." I think that says more about the creek than it does the waste."
Creek? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Creek? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Creek? (Score:3, Informative)
Ankh Morpork (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Creek? (Score:2)
Re:Creek? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Creek? (Score:5, Informative)
He told me the only reason they don't just pipe it directly from the plant back into the drinking water system is that people would cringe at the thought of drinking it, even though it's much cleaner than what they're pulling out of the lake now.
Re:Creek? (Score:2)
LOL, times have changed. Water comes from top and falls to ground, and we drain it out. But now we get water from shit, and tell people, "well our regular source of water is contaminated, and your body acts like a water filter thats mixed with shit. Don't worry it's 100% the government and organization WHO, FDDA, CPPSDA and TDI, IANAL, etc."
"So when do I get to stick a funnel filter up my ass?"
Re:If you drink out of the river... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:If you drink out of the river... (Score:5, Insightful)
the concept of water purified through man-made means, as opposed to nature which most people are more used to. in singapore's case, they're currently pumping the purified water into reservoirs, just to let it sit in the open so the birds and fish can crap into it and let nature do a bit of its thing, before purifying it again to pump into the water supply. all this, just to satisfy the odd inhibitions that a lot of people have to consuming purified sewage. weak-minded people really do bother me sometimes.
Don't be so hasty to cast stones. Clearly there is a double standard, born of ignorance on the part of many. A small ski resort I visited used to pump icky water from a swamp and make snow from it. You could tell because the air smelled terrible when they were doing it and the snow had a yellowish tinge from algae. However, look at what advertising has told the consumer:
Beer from the land of sky blue waters (can you name it? :-)
Mountain spring water (yeah, right... all 50 zillion gallons of it every day, that's no spring it's a river, in Cal. it's probably pumped from Colorado or Owens River, read Cadillac Desert)
Then there's the simple test of putting two glasses of water in front of someone, filtered from the town well and recovered water. Don't tell them before they taste test, then see if they make a face and call a lawyer once you've explained one came from recovered water.
People have been trained, since before the Bible to avoid water touched by human waste, because bacteria and fungi which cause some pretty bad aflictions grow in it. That was wisdom, it may seem misguided, until you run a marketing campaign to change people's opinion, then catch the local water filtration manager cutting corners. It's probably happening in your town and you don't even know it.
Me, I put a filter on my drinking water, for whatever good it does. Which it does to some small noticable degree.
Water is getting poorer in quality and reuse isn't a new concept, but reuse is growing and people will need to accept it, because alternatives (desalination, for example) can be very expensive.
Re:If you drink out of the river... (Score:2, Insightful)
anyway i didn't mean to imply that the ski resort would purify water to the same standards that singapore does. i agree that they probably wouldn't, since it wouldn't be cost-effective. i was just attempting to dismiss the eek factor a lot of people have with reclaimed water, despite the fact that it can be cleaner than most forms of potable water today.
by the way, singapore's utilities services are strictly government monitored, and even small screw-ups are widely publicised. a few years ago a sewage pipe in an apartment buildling leaked raw sewage into the water pipes due to lack of maintenance, resulting in some people being hospitalized. the case was plastered all over the newspapers and i'm sure some heads were rolling after that, as they rightfully should
Re:If you drink out of the river... (Score:2)
Are the kids around here really so young they don't remember Hamms [beerchurch.com]?
Re:If you drink out of the river... (Score:3, Insightful)
Snowmelt/rainfall fills the stream or aquifer your water comes from (exceptions, like L.A., where it's pumped hundreds of miles _into_ an aquifer)
You live in city D, downstream from Cities A, B, C.
City A uses the water, some of it is treated then fed to streams or back into wells.
City B does the same thing.
City C does the same thing.
All this use increases mineral content of the water, since minerals are disolved into water, not chunks you can filter out. Most can only be removed by energy intensive evaporation.
In City D you turn on the tap and out comes a glass of water with the accumulated minerals, trace elements, pollutants it has acquired on its journey.
Most cities grow, thus increasing their need for water.
The mineral and other chemical content compounds.
There is a treaty between the US and Mexico governing use of the Colorado River, as concentration of salts in water have, in the past, reached levels which were harmful to mexican agriculture. Recently L.A. lost access to Mono Lake water (because they were draining it almost completely), more recently Southern California has lost access to extra shares of Colorado River water, unused by upstream states, until now.
In short, the more water is used after it falls from the clouds, the more things accumulate in it. Biologicals can be treated out, but salts and chemicals are much more difficult. Pumping water into wells, to "purify" water has resulted in their decreasing effectiveness.
Granted, in the eastern US and other regions which receive greater rain and snowfall, it's less of an issue (so far.)
When I was much younger I heard of some Army Corps of Engineers plan to run a pipeline from Lake Michigan to the California. I thought it was just another goofy rumor. After reading Cadillac Desert, I found it wasn't just proposed, but the Great Lake States fought it.
Re:If you drink out of the river... (Score:2)
Dude, yourself. In the U.S. emotion overrules logic. As the original poster stated, people have inhibitions. In the absence of reason, emotion prevails. Respect, or fear of Cholera and Dysentery?
There is no such thing as pure H2O for drinking; the water tastes different depending on what goes into it, plain and simple. It doesn't matter if water cotnains fish and crafish shit, or human shit, cleaned water is cleaned water.
There is pure water, it is called Deionized or Distilled water, but you shouldn't drink it without adding minerals since it would leech them out of the body to acheive equillibrium. This is why people get stomach cramps from eating snow.
Cleaned water is subjective. What has been removed? Ideally it is free of harmful bacteria, parasites, fungi, etc., which boiling or chlorination would achieve. Other pollutants are another matter. A friend who worked a hazardous waste site shared this nugget of wisdom with me: Hazardous doesn't mean toxic, it simply means of an excessive concentration which would harm the environment. A fine and important point too few are aware of. They increased the demand on our town wells until the displaced water is replaced with unacceptable water, that from nearby aquifers or the sea, which have high (and getting higher) concentrations of various minerals. Fecal matter is the least of anyone's concerns.
Personally and honestly, I detest bottled water. I prefer city-clorinated water, it "tastes" better. But I'll drink any water so long as enough animal shit and dangerous chemicals are removed that it's deemed "safe". You're fortunate to have a good source of water. When I lived in Michigan the water came from deep in Lake Huron. Even wells up near Gladwin had exceptionally good water. Try the water in Ann Arbor, though, or try it in Phoenix, AZ or Los Angeles, CA. Much of the wests water drains through relatively young geology, such that dozens of salts exist and are building up. A visit to Salt Lake, Death Valley or Owens Valley can shead some light on the magnatude of the problem.
I can't help commenting on your Bible comment, but you do understand that humans have been drinling water for 10's of thousands of years before the first religions which came thousands of years before the Bible, right? Let's not get into non-nodern or pre-human apes, or Neanderthals, etc.
Not a matter of religion, though much of religion is peppered with sage advice brought from experience. Though early people lacked the details (what the organism or compound was), they could see the cause and effect clearly. Drink water from a pool with a carcass or drained from a loo and get sick. Science has made us aware of what is in the water and what it does to a body, it takes education to dispell fears and build trust.
The post to which you replied was right - it's weak minded-ness, like, "I eat snails, fungus and shrimp, but would never eat ants!".
Weakminded, or caution for self preservation? Epidemics and plagues are hard to erase from civilizations memory, labeling people stupid or cowardly for their caution is undoubtably what a great many dead or maimed people have done. If it's safe, work toward educating people, rather than name calling.
Ignorant fools.
Bravely stated, o anonymous one.
Re:If you drink out of the river... (Score:2)
People have hangups about this, yet many, if not all, of the complainers will regularly buy water in clear plastic bottles because they think it's "cleaner" and "healthier" than the water from the tap,
This is one of those things that regularly amuses me - the notion that water (or anything) is better for you if it comes from a nice sealed plastic container. Personally I try to limit my intake of foodstuffs that have been in prolonged contact with soft plastics - the pthalates and other organics that seep or offgas into your food and drink are generally worse than what's in the tap water. Many of them are hormone analogues like some of the nasty petrochemical-based pollutants flowing into streams and rivers these days. Lately I've phased out plastic in my kitchen in favour of glass and steel cookware and storage containers. I find since I've done this that I can taste when something's been contained in plastic, depending on the kind (hard thermoset plastics are usually ok, and notably don't imbue a flavour).
I saw a TV commercial the other day that claimed some sort of home water filter (probably Brita, which I have one of but have no real faith in for the things that matter) produces output that "tastes as fresh as bottled water". WTF? Since when did something bottled, canned, or wrapped in plastic become our yardstick of "fresh"? Shrinkwrap culture, I guess.
Re:If you drink out of the river... (Score:3, Funny)
The above was one of the problems - the futher down the Thames you got, the more crap (litterally) there was in the water. Though, since the Thames is a tidal river it went both ways.
An interesting read.
Nice try, geography's a bit out... (Score:3, Informative)
Try again later!
Interesting, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:2, Funny)
If they are going to go through this (no doubt) expensive cleansing process to put this water on the mountain, it must cost them a SHITLOAD to use fresh water to make the snow.
You can at least HOPE that your lift tickets, etc go down in price
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:2, Funny)
Actually, it'd probably work on a sliding scale, depending on how many burritos you ate the night before.
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually the term is now "SNOWLOAD".
You drink waste water anyway.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You drink waste water anyway.. (Score:5, Interesting)
A calculation of what would happen if we'd dilute all the urine from one days urination of the world population into all the 1.4 billion trillions litres water on earth. Yes, thank god for the internet putting questions like these into rest.
Re:You drink waste water anyway.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You drink waste water anyway.. (Score:2)
Hey just think of all the fish waste you suck in everthing you out in the oceans.
Got Urine?
Re:You drink waste water anyway.. (Score:2)
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:2)
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
--Mike
Potable and Non Poteble. (Score:2)
What your talking about is filtering waste line water and redistributing it for irrigation. Using it for toilet water isn't so common. But as you know in southern cali all that greenry is do to irrigation which uses this water. Typically in a purple pvc line. So dont drink the water from the purple pvc pipe.
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:2, Funny)
it was pretty clear that poor people were going to end up using rich people's (albeit clean) waste water. That just struck me as pretty screwed up.
I see you're not familiar with the theory of "trickle-down economics".
sorry but it has to be said. (Score:5, Funny)
crash (Score:5, Funny)
so now its... (Score:5, Funny)
Right now, as useless as..... (Score:3, Funny)
"This is about as useless as pissing on a bushfire."
What would you consider "clean" ? (Score:5, Insightful)
You and I both live in the middle of mother natures great recycler.
There is no such thing as to remove human waste, you may MOVE it at best.
Re:What would you consider "clean" ? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes! (Score:2, Funny)
All the way down the mountain!
Now... (Score:2)
Before anyone else gets in with this one (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Before anyone else gets in with this one (Score:2)
another snow-from-sewage story (Score:5, Interesting)
And they swore you couldn't tell it was sewage...
Re:another snow-from-sewage story (Score:2)
The process of snowmaking itself has been used lately in many areas of the US that make supplementary snow for skiing. Basically, the process of snowmaking is to pressurize the water and shoot it out of a nozzle with a cavity that causes the water to go from high pressure to small particles very quickly (like, milliseconds). The process, as a side effect, causes any cellular structures to be rapidly crushed and expanded, destroying the cell walls. So, it won't remove toxic minerals but it will eliminate the problems posed by human waste.
It sounds like the extra work they're going through is either overstated, overkill, or to remove those extra chemicals that the depressurization doesn't handle.
Re:another snow-from-sewage story (Score:2)
Nothing new really (Score:2)
How much water is saved? (Score:4, Interesting)
My other thought is, I'd imaging there must be some sort of minimum standard for the cleanliness of the water to make snow (no, there probably isn't a national standard like there is for drinking water), but there's probably some maximum amount of crud allowed in the water to not clog up the snowmaker machines. I've never been skiing, but don't you generally have several layers of clothing on, and nearly every part of your body covered? I don't think too many people are getting sick from the quality of the water used in snowmaking. Plus, are you eating it? Maybe the guy in the footage from ABC's Wide World of Sports (" .. and the agony of defeat... ") ate some snow, but most skiers probably don't ingest the snow.
I'm glad to see that they're purifying their sewage that much, but wouldn't it have been treated properly before this system was put in palce, and then discharged into a creek for other users (human, plant, and animal alike) downstream to use?
just thoughts from a non-skier, non sewage plant operater..
Future predictions (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Future predictions (Score:3, Funny)
Now what am I to do on Saturday nights???
Re:Future predictions (Score:2)
Or, there's the same joke that everyone on this page has already made twice: Snowball fight!
Re:Future predictions (Score:2)
Buddy #1: "I can't shit right now, and its almost recess"
Buddy #2: "Here, eat some Taco Bell, you'll get bowel movement instantly!"
Buddy #1: "Do you have vasaline?"
I just don't know what to say . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I'm not as logical as I once thought.
Re:I just don't know what to say . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't find exact figures, but I guess that each guest could easily produce 100 litres of waste 'liquid' each day, once you've taken into account all the water that is used in washing your teeth, showering, washing the plates you used for brekfast etc, etc.
If you could reclaim 95% of that water at a reasonable cost/efficiency then you're looking at 700,000 litres over water a day. Which would make quite a bit of snow.
Even if the resort saved just 1 cent per litre by not having to have more piped in that'd be a saving of $7000 dollars a day, definitely not to be sniffed at (or tasted
Re:I just don't know what to say . . . (Score:2)
So that changes the numbers above to 3.5 mega-litres of water a day and savings probably in the range of tens of thousands of dollars a day.
Definitely a case where the enivironmentally friendly choice is also the wallet friendly choice.
Competitive Advantage (Score:2)
Of course the gas masks will make their skiers less aerodynamic, so it might even things out.
Yeah right... (Score:2)
The only sensible season to spend *any* time in the Australian high country is summer, when the weather is damn pleasant, the flowers are out, and the views are fscking spectacular. Particularly at the moment, when half of it is on fire ... :/
We are, however, much better skiiers than the Austrians are surfers :)
Australian skiers on drugs, (Score:4, Funny)
No wonder australians are so relaxed
Re:Australian skiers on drugs, (Score:2)
Dude, if you can get ahold of "snow" and "powder", and now "good clean shit" too,
relaxed is one thing you WON'T be.
Now "green"......
Wait a minute... (Score:2)
Emphasis on Australian
Does anyone else also think this is a contradiction in terms??
Coming to grips with new tech. (Score:5, Interesting)
A typical knee-jerk reaction that nearly all of us have, myself included. But perhaps quite an unfair one.
This is going to seem a little off-topic. Bear with me!
We seem to be quite often short of water these days, and since we don't have a lot of new water catchment possibilities, it would seem that it can only get worse as the population increases.
Saving water seems to be the key here. Not only through more efficient appliances, but also through multiple uses of our water. How much sense does it make to be flushing our toilets with drinking water?
Some houses already capture "grey water" and use it for tasks where drinking water is not required. Obviously there's some filtering required. I've heard of other projects which are completely water self-sufficient. Yes, you end up boiling your potatoes in recycled piss!
Pretty revulsive to us today, but who knows? Maybe our grandkids will find it completely normal.
It is normal (Score:2)
Don't eat the mints in the Bathroom either (Score:2, Funny)
New word (Score:2, Funny)
Maturity (Score:2)
I like where the resort manager assures us that the Australian people are "mature" enough to see what a great idea this is.
I'm not sure it would be the "mature" individual who would be enthused about skiing on their own excrement.
And if the Australian people are "mature" enough, what people isn't? The Chinese? The Jamaicans? Perhaps he feels he'll only alienate the 'childish,' 'spoiled' populace of Switzerland with his revolutionary shit-shooters.
John
Well this explains why... (Score:2)
London water (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, waste liquid has to go somewhere - a ski slope seems pretty mild compared to many alternatives.
Re:London water (Score:4, Interesting)
It should be remembered that the percentage of household waste water that is urine is actually very small. e.g. more water is used to flush away a piss than is actually piss. Then there are people showering, having baths, washing clothes, washing dished, cooking etc etc etc.
It's not all that bad when you look at it closely.
What actually bothered me when I lived in London was that the base amount of oestrogen (spelling?) was climbing due to the huge number of women on the pill. This was then linked to rising male infertility in the London area.
To be safe - I drank only bottled water. Now my nuts have produced offspring - I don't mind so much.
Re:London water (Score:2, Funny)
There's also a good chance that your tap water is a dinoasur's piss, a neaderthal's piss...hell, it might even be my piss. Your tap water has probably been more places than you want to think about.
Re:London water (Score:2)
But I agree compared to Wales it is shit...
Isn't that how it works in nature? (Score:2, Insightful)
Myself, along with all the other organisms on this earth, piss and shit all over. It evaporates (the liquid parts, at least) and then it condenses in clouds, precipitates back down....
The Creek (Score:5, Funny)
This is a good idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, and I know some may dispute this, if we are running out of water where does it go? Water that evaporates down here usually turns up as a cloud and then rain somewhere on the planet. I know the planet isn't a closed system, but this water has to go somewhere. It doesn't just zoom off into space. I think that those who claim know have no idea what they are talking about when there's a water shortage. There's oceans full of it just wating to be desalinized. If they can find a economical process for desalinization, then most water problems could be solved.
Re:This is a good idea. (Score:4, Informative)
I think that's the crux of the problem. IANAWaterExpert but I think I've read the freshwater problem is basically that we're converting to saltwater the existing supply of non-saline water faster than the natural processes (evaporation, precipitation, ground filtration) can re-create it.
I think from an energy perspective its far cheaper to convert dirty freshwater into potable water than it is to convert saline water into freshwater, and even non-human drinkable freshwater is used for much more than drinking and bathing.
Filtration Processes (Score:3, Informative)
Most cities do less treating worse water which you drink, every day. Drink soda? You're drinking city water mixed with syrup and bottled. Drink Sparklets/bottled water? They have even more lax rules when it comes to water quality. Most cities use a sand filter/chlorination deal to treat your water. While this does a good job on fecal bacteria, it won't even irritate cryptosporidia, which can cause all sorts of nice diseases.
So don't just start saying "EW EW! Nasty!" Next to using electrolysis (which is a really sub-optimal solution on the cost angle) this is the cleanest water you'd be able to find.
Spoiled youth (Score:2, Insightful)
This is what I'd typically expect from the spoiled youth of today, who think that what the water they drink is either synthetically created from pure Hydrogen and Oxygen, or at least have never been anywhere near anything even resembling filth. So when they hear that people are purifying waste and putting it on the hill side (which probably isn't too sterile as it is), or... say... Watch Dune, where people use a suit to purify their own bodilly waste products for drinking, they go "eeeeew! Gross!". Well, FYI, your water has been on this planet for millions of years! Just about every species that have lived on this planet has crapped in your water, and then it's been through natural followed by artificial purification... What the ski resort is doing is just the same, and they only put it onto the hills... Wake up and smell the water!
Bacteria can help to form snowflakes... (Score:2)
Where the affluent ski with the effluent (Score:2)
I thought the same thing of NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
He was an analytical chemistry professor and then for NASA worked on the water filtration system for the Space Station.
The basic concept being that water is heavy at 8lbs/gal and so if they can limit how much they take up, they can use that saved weight towards carrying something else.
So they wanted to bring up a small fixed amount and then recycle out the waste - so when you took a leak, it would recover that and clean it out (with very similar methods to this article interestingly enough), and then... according to my dad - was usually cleaner than the water they brought on.
I was always puzzled at why they didn't just bring on cleaner water - but I suppose he was also hinting at the astronauts bringing some inside themselves as well... don't know.
Re:I thought the same thing of NASA (Score:2)
Water Processor Assembly [hsssi.com]
Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:5, Interesting)
Cells tend to rupture when frozen, either because the ice inside expands and bursts them (fast freezing) or because long, sharp, pointy ice crystals inside form and pierce the cell membrane (slow freezing). The temperatures typically found on ski slopes (within a few degrees of zero Celsius) are ideal for the formation of large ice crystals. There are also dehydration processes at work. Finally, cells left outside in slightly warmer weather still don't do well, because they'll starve to death. (Researchers who want to preserve cells long-term store them at liquid nitrogen temperatures to stop all metabolism.)
Recent research has suggested that freezing and thawing will also disable many viruses--apparently it damages the surface proteins they use to bind to our cells. Experiments conducted on freezing whole blood for storage revealed that freezing also inactivated much of the HIV in test samples. Some jurisdictions are now considering freezing all donated blood as an additional safety precaution before transfusion.
Not so say that freezing is a panacea--there are a number of nasties that will survive the process (encysted bad guys are often reisistant) but the frozen stuff is significantly cleaner than what came in, and it may well be cleaner than what's in most rivers.
Yes, I read the article, and yes, I realize that they filter and treat the water extensively before turning it to snow...but all that work might be overkill.
Re:Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:2)
Piss Poor (Score:2, Funny)
"Dirty"-snow in America Too (Score:2)
Even "natural" snow is filthy...
It would be interesting to do a broad chem comparison of melted natural snow versus "waste-product" snow ("This mountain is PURE SNOW!!! Do you know the street value of this slope?!")
Now where'd I put those "lemon" snow cones... 8^)
-Levendis47
not the only place (Score:2)
Great! (Score:2)
Australia Not The First (Score:2, Funny)
Also well circulated at the time was a cartoon showing two skiers on a ski lift with plumbers plungers on their shoulders. The caption read "Looks Like the Snowmaking Machines are Clogged Again"
Re: (Score:2)
Blast from the Past (Score:2)
"Bandini is the word for... fertilizer."
Beyond 2000?? (Score:2)
Now, I used to be a fan of Beyond 2000 back in the '80s and early '90s when Discovery aired the TV show in the US here, but why on earth is it still around? It's 2003 folks! Same goes for 20th Century Fox? We really need to get our heads out of our respective 20th century butts.
Flagstaff trying to do the same thing (Score:2)
Am I missing something here? (Score:2)
Uhhh... why not just use the water from the nearby creek?
Did someone actually stand up at a board meeting and say, "No, let's not use the creek water, let's use human waste water instead!"
Now when you tell someone there's an "ice sheet" on the mountain, you may have to clarify what you mean...
It's purified for God's sake! (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me get this right: it has been purified three different ways, is pristine and clean, and people are still worried about it?!? One can only imagine what Freud could make of these "potty fetishes"!
We really have to think about what these "potty fetishes" are costing us. Here in the SF Bay Area, we are dumping literally millions of gallons of fresh, pure, clean water (cleaner than the the input sources)a day into the SF Bay. We are spending millions to try and protect the brakish marsh and watelands of the SF Bay from this invaison of fresh water. The open loop water economies that we practice through out the world are costing us a untold price economically and ecologically. Southern California, due to its cut off of Colorado River water by the Federal Government, will be setting up desilenation plants. If they wanted to do it cheaper, and with less ecologoical impact, they would start water recycling.
My call for economic and ecological reason is "Close the Loop! Drink Recycled Water!"
so what.. (Score:2)
So what.. what do you think happens to your waste water in general? It doesn't disappear, it gets purified and pumped back into whatever river or lake you get your drinking water from. People in bfe just pump it into the ground where it filters through the dirt and seeps back into their wells.
Re:so what.. (Score:2)
I can answer that. It goes into this porcalin bowl, which magicaly makes it go away forever. Meanwhile, there is another magic place that gives me water...
It is starting to seem to me that is what people really think.
snow guns.. (Score:2)
You better hope they filter everything out of there or you could be covered in some sort of virii or feces by product.
Isn't there something about not shitting where you eat? How bout not shitting where you make snow either.
No reason not to use it (Score:2, Insightful)
Skiing on this snow shouldn't be a problem. Its not like you have to drink/eat the stuff. Urine is not hard to purify, there are much worse and much harder things to purify. I suppose there is a small psychological barrier to skiing on it at first.
If you're so paranoid about skiing on sanitized snow then I should mention you shouldn't taste your own sweat - it's 1 to 2 % urine. Another liitle known fact you probably didn't want to know
Typical (Score:2)
What, exactly?
Do you think there going to run it straight from the toilet to the snow maker?
In many cities, this is the norm. You can filter all the inpurities and end up with oure water. This is magic, it is a tried and true method of opperation.
But people are stupid. In LA, the city had a problem, It was paying a lot of money to ship recycled water it didn't have room to store. Somebody with a clue says "I know, instead of paying to ship water, why don't we just dump it into the ground water?" IMHO that was a good idea.
However, when the press found out about it, they said something like "City to put sewage into ground water" Naturally, people went nuts. So the water company had a press conference and said, "no, this is recycled waste. The same stuff we putinto the pipes". People still freaked out and where saying stuff like "I don't want that stuff polluting my ground water". The fact it came from the exact same place there tap water came from didn't seem to matter. sheesh.
FYI Los Angels water is very pure when it leaves the recycling plant, however the miles of rotten pipes it has to go through to get to your tap is getting pretty nasty, so use a filter.
avalanches... (Score:2)
So if you get caught in an avalanche of this snow, you're truly in a world of shit...
What about the color? (Score:2)
Implementation (Score:2)
Story's kinda stale, ain't it? (Score:2)
Hmm...seems some featured articles on Slashdot are like the human foetus--they must gestate for around 40 weeks before making an appearance. (Take a look at the article [beyond2000.com]--last updated 12 APRIL 2002!? I watched a TV program on this EXACT CASE on the Discovery channel AGES ago.
Even before that--some YEARS ago--on (if I recall) the CBC about a site somewhere in the Northern US states or Canada about using snowmaking technology as a final stage in sewage disposal--spraying droplets of wastewater through snowmaker nozzels infused it with oxygen and caused flash-freezing which destroyed a great deal of the remaining bacterial contaminants. It wasn't donr on a ski slope, however, the additional nutrients and moisture made for a really good vegetable crop in the summer.
Mildly interesting as the subject is, recycling wastewater is not the latest, greatest groundbreaking in technology--and it's been happening implictly for ages. My city gets almost all it's drinking water from a river--which is downstream from a nomber of small towns. Our fair city drinks from the piss and crap of not only countless birds, fish, beavers and livestock--it drinks from that of tens of thousands of people as well. I pity those who live downstream of the city--they get to pull water from a river that is essentially the effluent from the waste of 1 MILLION people.
Novel and environmentally consious way of making snow? Sure. Hardly shocking or cutting edge though.
NEXT...
Don't Eat the Yellow Snow... (Score:2)
I know Zappa has used it once, and that there is some eeyuh-wee reference to it in some Dexter cartoon or something, but I just wonder where the phrase came from originally.