Snowbowl manager slams Sierra Club
By Cindy Yurth
Navajo Times, October 11, 2007
FLAGSTAFF – Arizona Snowbowl General
Manager J.R. Murray released a written response this
week to the Sierra Club’s listing of the San Francisco
Peaks as one of the country’s most threatened places,
and criticized the club for opposing the ski area’s
expansion plans.
“It is hypocritical for the Sierra Club
to oppose the ski area upgrade when they were silent
when the Hualapai Tribe built a skybridge on the rim
of the Grand Canyon,” Murray wrote in his response.
“The Snowbowl proposal went through
a comprehensive (environmental impact statement) process
whereas the skybridge was just built because it is on
tribal land,” he stated.
The club, along with 13 Native American
tribes, sued the Snowbowl to prevent it fro using treated
wastewater from the city of Flagstaff to make snow,
saying the action would violate the sanctity of the
mountain.
The peak, known as Dook’o’oosliid in
Navajo, is one of the Navajos’ four sacred peaks marking
the boundaries of the tribe’s homeland. The mountain
is also sacred to the Hopi, the Apache and other tribes.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this
year overturned a lower court decision and ordered the
Snowbowl to suspend its plans, but a Flagstaff-based
group called Reclaim the Peaks is raising money to appeal
that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In its report on threatened public lands,
the Sierra Club maintains that if Snowbowl supporters
are successful in their appeal, the use of wastewater
and also the logging of additional land for proposed
new ski runs will play havoc with the mountain’s ecosystem.
In his statement, Murray counters that
the expansion would take place within the resort’s existing
footprint, and noted that the ski area occupies only
1 percent of the mountain’s terrain.
“Anyone can see that if 99 percent of
the land is set aside as a wilderness or undeveloped
public land, that the protection is already in place,”
he notes in the release.
He also disputes Sierra Club’s contention
that snow made from treated wastewater may cause health
problems if people ingest it.
“The same reclaimed water is being used
throughout the United States, State of Arizona, and
specifically in Flagstaff,” he writes. “The EPA and
ADEQ, regulatory agencies charged with approving such
uses, have approved the use of reclaimed water for snowmaking,
just as they have for discharge in Flagstaff into the
Rio de Flag, which is near a city well field.”
Murray also contends that some of the
Sierra Club’s own members will be adversely affected
if the expansion doesn’t go through.
“The Sierra Club has many diverse members,
many are skiers and even passholders at Snowbowl,” he
writes. “Any attempt to thwart the plans to make man-made
snow is a plan to close the ski area which would not
be in the best interest of the general public, including
many Sierra Club members.”
Snowbowl operators have said that
unless they can make artificial snow to compensate for
the region’s erratic snowfall, they may not be able
to continue operating.
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