Is your hill environmentally friendly?

That's fine. You ask for opinion and I voiced mine. If you only want positive opinion then maybe you should have stated such. In the link you supplied originally almost all of the marks against WP are for the planned expansion. They also slam them for not sending letters to the gov supporting Kyoto, no mass transit, and many other silly things.

If you REALLY want to see how the resorts are environemtally, go to them and walk around in the summer. Snoqualmie is a PIT. There is trash all over the mtn, old signs, bamboo poles, plastic tape and more. The entire ski acres parking lot was used as a dump area, filled in with trash and covered with dirt. A few years ago when they replaced the haul rope on the Keechelus lift Booth didn't know what to do with it so they cut it up into 50yd sections and drug the pieces all over the mtn and left them.
Also, the skiers themselves leave such a trash mess through the winter with it showing up in the spring/summer. When the snow melts us locals have to go around picking up all the trash that is left behind, tossed into the snow.

Instead of spending time on light bulbs, alternative fuels and low flow toilets you might want to consider things that really make a difference...... This is my suggestion, take it or leave it.

... water quality for the Snoqualmie River (your drinking water) ...

Check your water facts -- The Alpental area drains into the South Fork of the Snoqualmie -- however Seattle's drinking water supply comes from the Cedar river and the North Fork of the Snoqualmie.

The Summit, Ski Acres and Hyak area all drain into the Yakima river -- which is used for irrigation, but not drinking water.

The "scorecard" is heavily weighed against ski areas that expand (or attempt to expand their skiing terrain) -- That's fine as far as it goes -- but it's sort of an imperfect measure of the impact -- for example if the Summit areas started offering (free) bus service from Eastgate and charging $15 for parking this would considerably reduce the amount of air pollution generated each weekend -- but such a move would only gain  them two points on their scale of 222 total.  If they installed solar panels and windmills to generate all their power that would only be worth five points.

I think you should change to a study on the environmental effect of golfers!
Those golf courses and golfers are the real problem man. All them golf balls that get lost etc. Golfers are a real threat to mother earth !

I agree that skiers need to examine their effect on the environment and ski areas as well but at the moment I am getting green fatigue as everybody that's trying to sell me something has suddenly become green and corporations are now competing in their advertising as to how green they are. There is an incredible amount of hypocrisy in the corporate world regarding environmentalism but also within most people, me included. Ski areas have become a focus point for the disenchanted to complain about  but really examine our personal daily life and it's effect on the environment. The stuff we do everyday is the real problem not the short periods of time that we get to experience the joy of lift skiing.

My 2 cents.

Please indulge me while I drift a bit further away from the topic. A week ago I lost my job when the large corporation that I worked for these last 20 years permanently shut down my Division. One of the products that we produced is that green stuff that you see sprayed on the sides of highways and hills to reduce erosion. We made it and decorative hardboard panels (look for Canadian Forest Products labels at your HomeDepot) primarily out of recycled wood such as old 2 x 4s. One of the excuses for closing us down was the fact that we were having a harder and harder time getting wood fibre. It seems that many of the huge greenhouses south of Vancouver are being allowed to burn this waste wood so that they can grow tomatoes and peppers (some of which get shipped all the way to California) without using natural gas. Talk about greenhouse gases!

I guess what I am trying to say is that choices are not always clear cut and economic realities will still determine whether businesses and ski hills survive.

I'd bet that more good is done with better light bulbs, carpooling, and alternative fuel than picking up trash and bamboo poles on the hillside. It seems as if your confusing your love for WP with what hes really trying to say JackL. I don't look at it as an argument as for which ski area is "better".... but a template for what improvements can be made to reduce impact. The report card thing is a bit "offensive" it seems though.

I'd bet that more good is done with better light bulbs, carpooling, and alternative fuel than picking up trash and bamboo poles on the hillside. It seems as if your confusing your love for WP with what hes really trying to say JackL. I don't look at it as an argument as for which ski area is "better".... but a template for what improvements can be made to reduce impact. The report card thing is a bit "offensive" it seems though.

I'm just saying this from actual experience from hiking the ski areas and what I have seen. I would bet the most environmental damage would be caused by the ski/snowboard visitor rather then the ski area itself. The amount of trash (you would be amazed what gets dumped in the snow) is incredible and who gets to clean it up? Local volunteers, that's who. I've spent plenty of time walking the hills and roads around Snoqualmie cleaning up after careless folks and in the past the ski area has done very little to assist in this (maybe Boyne will be better?). I've been on the slopes after events to see what trash is left on the hill by the people who put on the events (paint cans, plastic pipe, duct tape, salt bags....etc) and it is all left there beyond when the snow melts, unless we pick it up ourselves.

IMO, that type of clean up is needed far more then light bulb replacement, bio whatever. Most of these so-called reportcards on the internet are done by people who sit behind a PC, do google searches and paste reports (how many of them have actually visited one of these ski areas?). A more hands-on check would be more accurate to see what the areas do to keep their slopes clean. I could care less if Booth Creek sent off letters to the gov to sign on to Kyoto when the slopes and surrounding area look like a trash dump.