by Bill Tracy
According to WJLA-TV7, The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has approved the next phase in the evolution of the former Lorton landfill off of Interstate 95: It will become a 1,700-foot ski slope. That’s right, a ski resort. In Northern Virginia. Only 10 minutes from my home.
The project, Fairfax Peak, will be a 450,000-square-foot indoor snow sports facility with a 100-room luxury hotel, sky bar, restaurants, and a bunny slope. The first of its kind in the United States, it will have not have only the longest indoor ski slope in North America but one of the longest in the world.
The project will be super-green too. Aside from the obligatory solar panels, the planned facilities will use waste heat from the adjacent county Waste-To-Energy plant. In other words, the incinerator will serve as bona fide co-gen plant.
Interestingly, per a Google search, Landfills-to-Ski Slopes is a global trend. The picture above is an artist rendering of a Denmark power plant that will incinerate trash while using the energy produced to power the city and the ski slope.
This brings up an eco-point I want to make, which is that globally, waste-to-energy is an accepted and civilized approach to deal with trash. This is in contrast to the NIMBY approach that U.S. liberals recommend, which is vilification of all combustion processes. Good luck to the USA, but the silver lining is that we can make 10-mile-high ski slopes if we landfill all the solar panels and wind-turbine blades from America’s “green” future.
And OK, I got a world largest ski slope coming to my backyard. That’s a so-called YIMBY: Yes in My Back Yard!
Bill Tracy, a retired engineer, lives in Northern Virginia.
