Mt. Baldy, CA – California’s Mt. Baldy is the first ski area in the world to place hollow plastic conservation balls in their snowmaking reservoir to reduce water evaporation.

The water-filled conservation balls are four inches in diameter and act as a floating cover to reduce water evaporation by up to 90%, according to their supplier, XavierC LLC, which is based in nearby Glendora, Calif.

“Water reservoir evaporation costs us $120,000 a year. Reservoir evaporation is the water equivalent of money going up in smoke,” states Ron Ellingson, President of Mt Baldy Ski Lifts.

Mt. Baldy operates a 10 million-gallon reservoir used mainly for snow making during the ski season. The large reservoir is fed by a smaller 1 million-gallon one located further down the mountain that’s filled by natural underground wells. It costs the ski area $10,000 monthly to pump water up the mountain from the smaller reservoir to the larger one, and the ski area’s expenses would be significantly higher if they had to pay for the water.

“The cost of water evaporation is a hidden expense. Unlike payroll, insurances and food costs, water evaporation doesn’t show up as a line item on the balance sheet and therefore can easily be ignored,” explained Ellingson. “But it is a very real and very big expense. I didn’t realize how big until we heard about hollow conservation balls.”

Two main causes of water evaporation in reservoirs are temperature and surface area, and the hollow plastic conservation balls address these two issues directly. By their nature, the conservation balls re-arrange themselves to fit any size and shape reservoir. As water levels drop the conservation balls accommodate the situation by stacking on themselves. When water level rise, the balls return to single layer on the surface.

Ellingson continues, “Unlike other types of reservoir covers, once the conservation balls are installed they are maintenance free.”

Mt Baldy Ski Lifts signed a contract with XavierC to supply the conservation balls in September. “We are excited to be working with a ski area as this opens up a brand new marketing channel for us,” says the company’s president, Sydney D. Chase. “Our regular clients are cities and municipalities that utilize hollow conservation balls to reduce reservoir evaporation.”

“We are excited that Mt Baldy is the flagship for conservation balls in the ski industry. By industry standards our reservoir is small, so resorts with larger ones will save far more money,” concluded Ellingson.