log stockade, to house railroad tie-cutters for the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, which was then being built across northern Arizona. In 1898, U.S. President William McKinley established the San Francisco Mountain Forest Reserve, at the request of Gifford Pinchot, the head of the U.S. Division of Forestry. The local reaction was hostilecitizens of Williams, Arizona, protested and the Williams News editorialized that the reserve "virtually destroys Coconino County." In 1908, the San Francisco Mountain Forest Reserve became a part of the new Coconino National Forest. In 2002, Arizona Snowbowl, the ski resort on the peaks, proposed a plan to expand and begin snowmaking using reclaimed water made of treated sewage effluent. A coalition of Indian tribes and environmental groups sued the Coconino National Forest, which leases the land to the ski resort, in an attempt to stop the proposed expansion, citing serious impacts to traditional culture, public health, and the environment. In 2011, construction began on a wastewater pipeline to the peaks. In response, there was an ongoing series of protest actions including demonstrations and lockdowns in which protesters chained themselves to construction equipment. In 2012, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Arizona Snowbowl, and wastewater to snow conversion began in the 2012–2013 ski season. Ecology The biologist Clinton Hart Merriam studied these mountains and surrounding areas in 1889, describing a set of six life zones found from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the summit of the mountains, based on elevation, latitude, and average precipitation. He designated their characteristic flora, as follows: Lower Sonoran Zone – Sonoran Desert plants Upper Sonoran Zone – pinyon and juniper woodlands Transition Zone – ponderosa pine forests Canadian Zone – mixed conifer forest Hudsonian Zone – spruce-fir or subalpine conifer forest Arctic-Alpine Zone – alpine tundra Merriam considered that these life zones could be extended to cover all the world's vegetation types with the addition of only one more zone, the tropical zone. The San Francisco Peaks themselves contain four of the six life zones. The four life zones that are found along the slopes of the San Francisco Peaks are listed below along with their approximate elevation ranges, dominant tree species found within each of the four life zones, and average annual precipitation of each life zone: Ponderosa pine forests – The elevation of the zone ranges from approximately . The dominant tree species is the southwestern ponderosa pine