Poop Snow Plans Generate Ire in Native AmericanCommunity

A Flagstaff, Arizona, ski resort is looking to make what many. Many installed pumps were notoriginally specified for their current use. Typically, a line in a plant is relocated and the pump that atone time provided cooling fluid to an injection molding machine is now needed to move oil from arail car to a tank. Sadly, this is the cause of many problems for the pump and the factory. Pumpsoperate where the pump curve crosses the system curve. If you move a pump from one system toanother, this means that the system curve is different. This new system may cause the pump tooperate away from its best efficiency point, leading to noise and other component problems that aresimply symptoms of a mis-matched pump and system.call "poop snow." As disgusting as the prospectof face planting in a pile of snow made from human excrement, just think about all the things youput in your mouth that aren't exactly sanitary and it might not seem so bad.

In any event, what the Snowbowl Ski Resort is planning to use is "sewage effluent" in its waterrecycling efforts. There are multiple basic refinements which ought to be added to a typical

centrifugal or positive displacement pump. Regarding pumps with overhung impellers, replacing theshaft with a solid shaft is a desirable improvement over the industry standard sleeved shafts.Mechanical seals are able to be improved with the addition of tungsten carbide faces, andelastomers are able to be changed to EPDM. Furthermore, magnetic bearing protectors will prove tobe a small centrifugal pumps vast improvement over the lip seals which nearly all commercial pumpsrely on to maintain clean bearing sump oil.

It will reclaim water from Flagstaff's water treatment plant and then convert that water into snow onan as-needed basis. The resort will build a pipeline directly from the treatment plant to the skiresort, where it will store the water in a reservoir. Work has already started on the 15-mile pipeline,and ski fanatics in the Southwest will probably be tickled to have a viable option for the times the12,000 foot San Francisco Peaks don't get enough snow to provide a safe skiing environment.

So, what's the problem? Waste water is safe for consumption. You might actually be bathing intreated waste water, or even drinking treated water. As disgusting as that sounds, it's not all thatuncommon. However, the local tribes have been fighting the waste water pipeline effort for years.They reason that even treated water is still waste water, and would sully the mountain peaks theyconsider sacred. In fact, if the pipeline goes through, and the waste water is used on the slopes, thetribes would believe their holy ground would be irreversibly and negatively impact the mountains'spiritual purity.

If you think it's not a big deal and they should suck it up, just think: would you want someonedumping what is essentially poopy water in your church? If you were Catholic, how would you feel ifyour church used recycled sewage for the holy water? Would you feel a bit sullied? If your answer isyes, then you can understand how the Navajo tribe feels, as well.

As ingenious as the solution to an inconsistent snowfall problem, should Snowbowl Ski Resortconsider other ways to generate snow so it can retain skiiers and maintain a reliable source of snow?

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