Mount Lemmon Ski Valley, north of Tucson, in January 2012.By Melissa Sevigny, Arizona Science Desk
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Ski resorts on national forest land will have to prove they have sufficient water supplies, under a federal rule taking effect at the end of January.
The rule will affect 122 ski resorts across the country, including three that are on national forest land in Arizona - Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, the Arizona Snowbowl north of Flagstaff and Elk Ridge, west of Flagstaff.
The rule arose out of concerns about limited water resources in the West, said Jim Bedwell, recreation director for the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service.
“We know that communities have built their economies around it, that lifestyles are built around it,” Bedwell said. “We felt it was in the best public interest to sustain those water rights with the ski area operation.”
An older version of the rule required ski resorts to transfer their water rights to the federal government, but the Forest Service abandoned that plan after a lawsuit in 2012.
Instead, resorts will have to document long-term, secure water supplies when they apply for or renew their permits.
“What the Forest Service now wants to do with this language in the new rules is just to make sure ski areas maintain the quantity of water that they have for their snowmaking and for their operations, before they use or divert any of those water rights to any other uses," said J.R. Murray, general manager of Arizona Snowbowl.
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