Court OKs making snow with reclaimed water
By Courthouse News Service
The 9th Circuit gave a drought-ravaged ski resort in Arizona permission to make artificial snow with reclaimed water, calling an environmental group's most recent challenge to the move a "gross abuse of the judicial process."
Individual members of the Navajo Nation -- to whom the San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff, where Arizona Snowbowl operates a popular ski resort, are sacred -- first sued the U.S. Forest Service to prohibit the proposed snowmaking in 2005.
They claimed that the plan violated their religious rights, and that the agency had neglected to study the possible health effects of ingesting reclaimed water. A District Court rejected both claims.
On appeal in the 9th Circuit, however, a three-judge panel held that the plan did violate the plaintiffs' religious rights. That panel also found that the Forest Service had not properly discussed the potential health risks of the snow. But then an en banc panel vacated that ruling and upheld the District Court. The case eventually went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied the plaintiffs' petition for a writ of certiorari in 2009.
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