Water District Discusses Weather Modification
Glasscock Groundwater Conservation District Manager Rick Harston told the district’s board on Oct. 15 that 279 clouds had been seeded in the weather modification program between March and September. He said West Texas Weather Modification Association, of which the county is a part, is training two more pilots, one to be stationed in Midland and the other in San Angelo.
Harston and the board discussed the High Plains Groundwater District suspending, then canceling its weather modification program because of continuing opposition from landowners, especially in Bailey County. He said he has been told that the program’s critics in the High Plains district control only four percent of the land in the district. He said there is also an effort in the Panhandle district to stop cloud seeding there.
Harston said his understanding is that critics of the program believe the cloud seeding deprives some areas of rain by making it fall on other areas. He says 20 years of data has proven that isn’t true. Harston said a small but vocal number of people in various areas are trying to get state permitting and state funding for weather modification reduced or eliminated, which he said would effectively kill the projects across the state.
GGCD directors seem solidly in favor of continuing the local cloud seeding effort, which has been going on for six years. They say that the planes flying out of Midland are giving Glasscock County better chances for rain by seeding clouds while they are building to our west. Director Dennis Seidenberger said one of the pilots had been skeptical of the effectiveness of seeding until he saw the almost instantaneous results inside seeded clouds. He said the pilot’s changed opinion had bolstered his own belief in the program.
Seidenberger said the effort will not be stopped if the drought ends. He said that would be when there are more good opportunities for seeding. Harston agreed, and mentioned the need for recharge of aquifers and lakes.