Using Recycled Water to Make Snow  

I spent part of my break honing my slush skiing skills in the Snowy Mountains (with the occasional break to navigate some large icy patches and, very occasionally, to find some decent pockets of snow). When it gets cold enough, Australian ski resorts tend to make quite a lot of artificial snow to supplement the increasingly unreliable natural stuff. TreeHugger reports that Mt Hotham is implementing a system to make the snow from recycled water rather than pumping it out of the streams, which is a good idea - hopefully the NSW resorts follow suit.

Strange as it might seem this is very topical story right now. ‘Coz right after writing this post, I’m heading off for a spot of backcountry skiing. In the southern hemisphere it’s winter and even in Australia that means snow. Both natural and man-made. Now you can argue the eco-merits (or decided lack thereof) in many ski resorts but we’re not going to worry that one here. Instead we bring you the cool story about Mt Hotham, who are in cahoots for the Victorian state government to implement a $8.4 million AUD project. Apparently it’s a bit of breakthough. "This is the first time in the world we're able to use treated, recycled water for snow-making" said the Environment Minister, John Thwaites. If all goes to plan, the scheme will provide 90% of the snow-making water, instead of the 110 million or so litres they currently pull from mountain streams. The recycled water will also be used to flush the resort toilets.

My trip home was eventful, taking 3 hours longer than usual and including a long detour on some dirt roads through Great Dividing Range which required fording some streams in my now filthy vehicle (or irony-mobile as my colleague in the North would put it), due to an unfortunate accident on the main highway to Canberra.