Is Cloud seeding safe?
We’ve been talking about cloud seeding this week and how effective it can be. But, Is Cloud seeding safe? One of the main concerns people have about cloud seeding, IS IT SAFE? People have understandable concerns about environmental and health impacts on water and wildlife.
(Augustus Doriko, CEO Rainmaker) I am super sympathetic to people that have questions about cloud seeding, right? A lot of people haven't heard of it ever before. A lot of people that might have heard of it aren't sure exactly how it works or what goes into it. So those questions make a lot of sense. Is it safe? What's going on? How does it work?
(Derek Blestrud, Id Power) “The greatest part about silver iodide is it's insoluble in water, and that's why it works as a good seeding agent. It stays intact when that water hits it. It doesn't dissolve, and then that can grow the snowflake. And it also is good that way because once it falls to the ground and the tiny amounts that, the trace amounts that do fall in the snowpack, they’re not available for aquatic organisms to ingest and intake, and that's why it's a safe manner for cloud seeding.”
(Augustus Doriko, CEO Rainmaker) “Cloud seeding was invented 80 years ago in the United States in 1946. And because it was invented so long ago, Programs have been running at a small scale for decades. And even though we weren't able to prove how well it was making precipitation until recently, we were able to prove with 80 years of data that the material we're using is safe because of how little of it is getting into the precipitation and watershed. When we use about 50 grams of silver iodide in an operation, about as much as you can fit in your hand, That gets distributed over 10s of square miles, if not hundreds. And the concentrations of silver iodide in the water that comes down is about 8 parts per trillion. The amount of silver in American soil is already about two parts per million. So we're way below that problematic threshold. And then the clean water drinking standard is 100 parts per billion. We're still about a million times less than that. And so, does it make sense to ask if Silver iodide is safe? Absolutely. But what does the data say about it? That it is absolutely safe and has no adverse effects for the environment, for agriculture, or for human health.”
(Jeff Raybould, IWRB) “There's no indication of any negative environmental consequences from putting the small amounts of seeding material out there that we use. And in the areas where we use it, where that material lands, is in remote mountain locations. We're not seeding over to have that material come in contact with cities and residential areas.”
Another substance used in cloud seeding that people have raised concerns about is acetone. It’s burned to release the silver iodide in both the nozzles and flares from an aircraft release and also ground units. However, when it’s burned, it converts to water vapor and carbon dioxide posing no danger to the environment.
(Jeff Raybould, IWRB) “There's a fair amount of misinformation out there. And I would like to ask Idahoans to, if they have questions, to go and look, go to our website and look at all the materials that are there. We've done extensive research as we've invested in cloud seeding as a water board.”
Some states have banned could seeding or are considering bans over fears about silver iodide, as well concerns about contrails, the long streaks of water or vapor condensation trails left by aircraft at high altitudes produced by aircraft engine exhaust and changes in air pressure.
Conspiracy theorists say that contrails are actually chemtrails, clouds of chemical or biological agents dumped on the unsuspecting public for nefarious purposes. Different motives are ascribed, from weather control to mass poisoning.
Other concerns include fears of causing unintentional flooding and also possibly stealing water from neighbors downwind of cloud seeding operations. Both of these concerns are not supported by any evidence, and experts note that seeding only uses a tiny percentage of the moisture in the cloud.
This map shows active programs in Idaho right now.
Today a partnership between Idaho Power, Water Users and the state work together in a collaborative program to manage cloud seeding operations, which must be licensed by the state through the Idaho Water Resource board, as well as mandatory federal reporting to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (NOAA)
(Jeff Raybould, IWRB) “We've developed a relationship where the water users pay a portion of the cloud seeding costs, and the water board pays a portion, and Idaho Power pays a portion. And it's a win-win-win proposition. In years of plenty, a lot of the water goes to Idaho Power. In scarce years, nearly all the water goes to water users. And it's worked really well.”
WHAT WILL CLOUD SEEDING LOOK LIKE IN THE FUTURE?
One of the more recent developments is the use of drones for cloud seeding. Rainmaker is a company that has developed drones specifically designed to better target storm clouds. They have built in sensors and can fly into high winds up to about 45 knots, and have anti-icing systems with heaters on the drone propellers.(Augustus Doriko, CEO Rainmaker) ”The best conditions, the conditions in a cloud that you can get the most additional water on the ground from are the most meteorologically severe. The worst the icing is, generally speaking, even the worst the winds are. the worse the turbulence is, the better it is for cloud seeding. The more snow you can put on the ground from flying into it. And so the beefier we can make this, as beefy as we have made it already, the more conditions we can get into and the more water we can put on the ground.”
They operate in the Bear River drainage in Southeast Idaho using both ground-based generators and drones. Other areas in Idaho are also being looked at for possible new cloud seeding programs. Some companies are also looking at new technologies like using electrically charged water or organic particles instead of silver iodide.
(Augustus Doriko, CEO Rainmaker) “What excites me about cloud seeding, why I think this is such a good and important thing, is because we can bring new supply to these areas that never would have been able to have it before.”
(Jeff Raybould, IWRB) “We want the public to be informed and to know what's going on with cloud seeding. We have a website that has a lot of information about the program, the current status of the program, links to information about the history of cloud seeding and the general aspects of cloud seeding that they can go and find out for themselves what's happening so that they have a clear understanding of the benefits from the program.”
