28-04-2025
Why indigenous tribes oppose the use of reclaimed water at Arizona Snowbowl
Flagstaff meteorologist Mark Stubblefield has been riding the San Francisco Peaks' slopes at Arizona Snowbowl almost every winter since 1987. But in 2012, something sparked a little concern in his thoughts.
'One day, I went up there when they were making snow and I was hit by the sprinkles of water that were in the air,' Stubblefield said. 'And I thought, 'Do I really want to be breathing this stuff?''
The 'stuff' that Stubblefield refers to is reclaimed water – partially treated sewage effluent that the city of Flagstaff agreed to supply to Snowbowl for its snowmaking in 2002.
Up to 178 million gallons of reclaimed wastewater are blown out into the air to make artificial snow over the course of a skiing season, geologist Richard Hereford said.
It's the use of that wastewater that some of the oldest civilizations in North America say is a profound violation of their spirituality and health. The Navajo, Hopi, Hualapai, Havasupai, Yavapai-Apache, White Mountain Apache, Tonto Apache, Zuni and other tribes say it ruins their sacred lands, harms the ecosystem, and continues the genocide of their ancestral culture.
'The Earth, with its air, water, food, soil, and living trees, and this mountain, are my extended family,' Navajo rights activist Cora Maxx-Phillips said. 'We need to protect it.'
The Navajo Nation in 2007 sued the U.S. Forest Service, alleging the use of millions of gallons of treated sewage effluent daily to make snow on the western slope of Humphreys Peak violated 1993's Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibiting the government from 'substantially burdening the free exercise of religion.'
The case went to a federal appeals court, which found 'no plants, springs, natural resources, shrines with religious significance, or religious ceremonies that would be physically affected by the use of such artificial snow.'
'Thus, the sole effect of the artificial snow is on the Plaintiffs' subjective spiritual experience,' the court ruled.
But tribal members said that finding discounts the range of peaks' status as a life-giving force that tribes hold in their hearts with deep spiritual, cultural and physical meaning.
'These mountains are beacons,' Dianna Sue White Dove Ukualla, said. She's among the last Havasupai still living 3,000 feet below the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Her people are the 'guardians of the Grand Canyon,' she said, having shaped it for more than 800 years.
'These mountains, the peaks, grow a lot of medicine, and these white trees are powerful trees in our ways, of the Supai people,' she said, pointing to the white-barked Aspens bordering the boundary of Snowbowl.
She told the story of two twin heroes who were birthed in a spring at San Francisco Peaks by a healer. It highlights the Supai reverence for the peaks' snow melts that fed the aquifers and springs essential to their survival.
But as Navajo activist Shawn Mulford points out, there are small signs at Snowbowl that warn people not to ingest the treated wastewater that's now being used on the slopes.
The beloved spring where the twins came to life in the legend of the Supai people is now contaminated.
'We can't go there anymore because we don't know what this snowmelt has done to it,' Ukualla said. 'I want this place to restore its harmony with the trees, the animals, all that is on the land.'
Those words echo loudly on the subalpine meadows of the San Francisco Peaks.
'We can't go harvest on the peaks anymore,' said Ka-Voka Jackson of the Hualapai Tribe. She's one of the 2,300 'People of the Tall Pines' that inhabit the region along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. 'And the springs we collected water from, it's not the water it used to be.' she said.
Jackson said that when there's pain and destruction going on in the land, the indigenous people can't go there anymore because it's no longer a place of healing. She points to her shirt, which reads, 'No Desecration for Recreation.'
The Navajo Nation said in its 2007 lawsuit the research on the environmental impacts of that snowmelt was insufficient.
It still is, but tribal advocates are trying to change that.
Among the few investigations that have been made, Hereford's stands out. After sampling the stormwater runoff from Snowbowl, he found there is an excess of phosphorus and nitrogen in the soil, which aren't naturally occurring.
Hereford said it would take 'a whole new level of treatment' to remove those elements from reclaimed water.
'The nutrient-rich water affects the ecosystem because it acts like a fertilizer in an area that was pristine, so it disrupts it,' he continued.
Others are seeking to test for other contaminants that don't break down in treated wastewater. Mulford, the Navajo activist, is planning on testing the water for sucralose, an artificial sweetener with the help of an environmental engineer from Florida.
But Mulford's research is still in its early stages, and studies on how that nutrient-loaded water affects the ecosystem long-term are missing.
In the meantime, the snow-capped San Francisco Peaks know nothing of the conflict between indigenous reverence and the indifference of progress.
'My ancestors have shed tears, like I do, saying that this place is holy and it's sacred, nobody paid attention, and they left this world with their tears,' Maxx-Phillips said. 'To this day, we're still shedding tears but we will never give up, that's who we are as indigenous Nations.'
Natasha Cortinovis is a master's student at the University of Arizona, and is part of a student newsroom led by The Arizona Republic.
Coverage of the Society of Environmental Journalists conference is supported by Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism, the University of Arizona and the Arizona Media Association.
These stories are published open-source for other news outlets and organizations to share and republish, with credit and links to
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why tribes oppose Arizona Snowbowl's use of reclaimed water
