Water in Reserve

With narrowing snowmaking windows and increasingly efficient snow gun productivity, water pumping capacities have been rising at a significant rate. However, water sources have generally remained the same, and water regulations often limit or restrict usage. That has made water storage both a higher priority and a more common solution for meeting the surge capacities needed during high production snowmaking operations.

The common practice of drawing water from creeks or streams has become higher risk, even in the traditionally water-abundant states of the East, since local or state agencies have been imposing restrictions in order to maintain minimum downstream flow to protect fisheries. This practice has long been in place across much of the West.