Water District Has New Name, Director
Incumbent Kenneth Braden, incumbent Dennis Seidenberger, and Mike Hughes will begin new terms on the Glasscock Groundwater Conservation District’s Board of Directors in August. Hughes replaces Mark Halfmann in Precinct 2, after Halfmann chose not to run for another term. No election was necessary since no one else filed for the positions. The other directors are Zane Eoff and Larry Wheat.
The GGCD, formerly the Glasscock County Underground Water Conservation District, was recently renamed to more accurately reflect its scope and purpose.
Weather Modification Program
With Glasscock County’s $13,000 semi-annual part of the weather modification (cloud seeding) program due in July, the board discussed the program at its regular meeting June 19. Harston and the board have long voiced concern regarding how the weather program is run, and whether the county has gotten its money’s worth from it. Much of their dissatisfaction relates to the location of the group’s radar, the hours pilots are available, and which clouds are seeded. They have said that the radar is located too far east to find clouds west of Glasscock County and get them seeded in time to generate rain here, that pilots are sometimes unavailable late in the afternoon when favorable clouds start building here, and that “marginal” clouds are not seeded. Harston said, “ Seeding a marginal cloud may only produce a half-inch, but that’s a rain here.”
GGCD Director Dennis Seidenberger said, “If they can’t operate it [the weather mod program] properly, we need to drop out.”
Harston reported that the cloud seeding planes now operate under new rules which allow seeding of a cloud that has had a weather warning on it, unless the warning was for possible “tornadic activity” in the cloud.
The paths of flights taken by the planes can be seen on personal computers by going to the GGCD’s home page, at www.angelfire.com/tx/gcuwd/ then to “Links,” then to “Weather Modification Site,” then “Aircraft Flight Track Images.” Click on “Flight Track Archives” to see past flight paths.
New State Groundwater Bill
Harston reviewed the newly passed Senate Bill 2, calling it “A home run — almost a grand slam,” for the state’s groundwater districts. Harston said he spent 30 nights and 41 days in Austin during this legislative session, working with representatives from other districts to influence the bill’s content.
Some of the bill’s highlights: it provides a process for resolving conflicts between a groundwater conservation district’s management plan and the regional water plan; streamlines the creation of new groundwater districts; gives water districts the option of setting stricter rules; provides that penalties for violation of groundwater district rules are sufficient to ensure adherence to district rules (up to $10,000 per day per violation), and adds drought conditions to the management goals that districts must address.
An 11-page condensation of SB 2 is available in the local water district office.