As drought conditions persist throughout Pennsylvania, it is possible that the ski resorts dotting Northeast Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains will be effected. That's because the process of making snow requires a tremendous amount of water. On a cold night, a single resort can pump more than 2,000 gallons of water per minute through its snow guns. But sparse rain and snowfall have left streams, groundwater levels and reservoirs below normal along the eastern seaboard, according to the National Weather Service. As Gwen Shaffer reports, voluntary restrictions on water usage have already been placed on some ski resorts.

On this sunny Saturday afternoon, its doubtful if any of these skiers flying down the slopes at Jack Frost Mountain are thinking about just where that snow came from. But with only one big dump of the fluffy white stuff so far this season, about 80 percent of the snow currently blanketing ski resorts in the Pocono's is machine made.

"We've received some natural snow over the last month or two, got 18 inches one time and had a couple of smaller storms. But all of the bases are machine snow," says Mark Daubert, director of operations for Jack Frost Mountain and Big Boulder Resorts.

Walking along a row of several dozen snow guns, Daubert explains how they are used to mix air and water pressure.

"The colder the air and dryer, the more water we can run through the gun because it freezes quicker. As air gets saturated from humidity and the temperatures are warm, we can't freeze it quickly and it makes a sloppy mess out on the hill," he says.

Most ski resorts in the Poconos use "marginal weather guns" that run best between 20 and 28 degrees, Daubert says. "We can probably get about 150 running at the same time."

So far this season, snow-making has been limited by the warm temperatures more than the drought, he adds. In the fall, many ski operations were asked to reduce water usage by 5 percent. But it was too warm to make snow, anyway.

As Daubert walks over the edge of the Tobyhanna Creek, he says snow-making operations at Jack Frost don't negatively impact the watershed.

"Basically, our snow making is a big loop," he says. "We just pump water up the hill, the part that we take out of the pipeline to create and blow snow with lands on the hill. And in the spring of the year, it melts and runs back down to the crick."

But Daubert's view is far from universal. Craig Todd, district manager for the Monroe County Environmental Education Center in the Pocono's, says snow making in the area is not harmless.

"We have seen fluctuations in stream levels as a result of snowmaking, and those fluctuations have been inappropriate and alarmed us," Todd says.

Fish and their aquatic habitat are particularly stressed during the winter months, he notes. As a result, significant fluctuations in water levels can have dramatic effects. Still, there are so many variables to snow making that it would be unfair to blame ski resorts for declining watersheds in the Pocono Mountains, Todd says.

"It all depends on where they're getting the water, how they are utilizing it, do they have storage, and what is the background quality of the surface stream they're taking water from," he says.

Greg Confer, general manager at Elk Mountain Ski Resort in Susquahanna County, says that resort draws water from several ponds located at the base of the mountain.

"So as we make snow, anything that melts, we collect and use several times over and over," he says. "We can pump as many as 1,000 to 2,000 gallons of water per minute, on a real cold night. However, on a marginal night, we don't make nearly as much snow, at temperatures 25 to 30 degrees."

Chris Roberts, spokesman for the Delaware River Basin Commission, says the commission regulates all water withdrawals of more than 100,000 gallons per day. Even though a drought emergency was declared in December, Roberts says it isn't yet effecting area ski resorts.

"It would be possible, if conditions continue to deteriorate, that we would ask users, including most of the ski resorts, to come up with drought contingency plans," Roberts says. The basin commission is not at the point of asking area businesses to cut back on water usage.

And even Craig Todd, of the environmental center in Monroe County, acknowledges that the ski resorts have less environmental impact than many other potential uses. "There are some intrinsic benefits to ski resorts. To a degree, that can be categorized as open space."