“…The body of scientific literature in the US on the effects of alpine ski area operations on watershed processes is sparse and drawn largely from a few studies conducted in the western states (Shanley and Wemple, 2002). A series of studies in the southern Rocky Mountains documented minimal impacts of ski area operations on bacteriological water quality, elevated levels of heavy metals, elevated levels of dissolved ions, and some impacts on the aquatic macroinvertebrate community (Gosz, 1977;Moore et al, 1978;White et al, 1978;Molles and Gosz, 1980). Studies in Colorado have estimated consumptive losses from man-made snowmaking that range from 13-37% of water used for snowmaking, but the authors caution that consumptive losses would be considerably less in more humid areas such as the eastern USA (Eisel et al, 1988(Eisel et al, , 1990.…”