Cloud seeding moves ahead

By JOAN BARRON
Star-Tribune capital bureau

CHEYENNE -- In an effort to make more snow in the mountains and prove the skeptics wrong, the Wyoming Water Development Commission on Thursday moved along a $1.9 million contract for cloud seeding in the Wind River Mountains and at the headwaters of the North Platte River.

The contract was awarded to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, Colo., for cloud-seeding work from 2005 to 2011.

The Legislature last winter appropriated $8.8 million for a five-year weather modification pilot study. Of that amount, $8.7 million already has been earmarked for a variety of contracts, including projects, studies and evaluations, said commission Director Mike Besson.

"The real test will be if there's more snow on the mountains," said Rep. Owen Petersen, R-Mountain View, a member of the Legislature's Select Water Committee.

The legislative committee, which oversees water development contracts, met jointly with the commission Thursday.

Petersen said the cloud-seeding appropriations was a "hard sell" in the House in the session last winter.

"They think it's like throwing money in the air, and literally you are," he said of the House skeptics.

Petersen said he favors the program because his area of the state benefits from cloud seeding in Utah.

Rep. Rodney "Pete" Anderson, R-Pine Bluffs, said the last session was one of the few times the House had trouble with the omnibus water bill, a multimillion-dollar batch of water projects.

This year's omnibus bill allocated $19.4 million for various water projects and studies. The weather modification project was the single most costly venture on the list.

The program also involves seeding clouds in the vicinity of the Medicine Bow, Snowy and Sierra Madre mountain ranges.

The American Meteorological Society estimated earlier that a well-conducted winter weather modification program can result in about a 10 percent increase in precipitation.

The testing involves dispersing silver iodide into the clouds from aircraft or ground-based burners to speed up ice formation within the clouds.

Wyoming water officials said earlier that a successful program could increase water supply in the state at a cost far less than through dam construction. They estimated cloud seeding could produce water at a cost of about $13 per acre foot, compared with a cost of about $2,500 per acre foot to build a new dam and reservoir.

Capital bureau reporter Joan Barron can be reached at (307) 632-1244 or at joan.barron@casperstartribune.net.