‘Stop playing God with the weather’
Company claims 15 percent more rain from cloud seeding
The New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission has approved another cloud seeding project by a Texas-based company that seeks to increase precipitation across approximately the eastern third of the state, with commissioners adding the caveat that the Calf Canyon–Hermits Peak Fire burn scar be excluded from the project area due to risk of flooding.
According to Seeding Operations & Atmospheric Research (SOAR)’s application, which like its 2021 application, was sponsored by the Roosevelt Soil and Water Conservation District, the weather modification was to be conducted between April 1-Oct. 31 over the counties of Chaves, Colfax, Curry, DeBaca, Eddy, Guadalupe, Harding, Lea, Lincoln, Mora, Otero, Quay, Roosevelt, San Miguel, and Union.
After 23 people submitted comments in opposition to that project, the ISC Weather Control Committee’s recommendation was to approve the application, but only after it was amended to exclude Mora County and San Miguel County.
“I am opposed to cloud seeding. This could cause additional flooding in the burn scar,” Joseph Griego, a Mora resident, submitted to the ISC. “The danger of health risks involved in this process is unknown. Please stop playing God with the weather.”
“All of those 23 protestants came from Taos, Mora or San Miguel counties,” ISC attorney Nicholas Rossi told the commission at its Feb. 23 regular meeting. Citing concerns that modified rainfall might occur outside the project boundaries, commissioner Phoebe Suina cast the lone vote to deny the application.
Suina is a member of San Felipe Pueblo and Cochiti Pueblo, and has a background in post-wildfire disaster recovery, including experience with flood mitigation within the 2000 Cerro Grande burn scar.
“Was that also looked at, in terms of making sure that it wasn’t an immediately southern county; that it wouldn’t then carry the precip onto San Miguel or Mora County?” she asked.
ISC Deputy Director Hannah Riseley-White responded,”We concluded that the county boundaries were sufficiently distanced from the burn scar areas; that as long as operations were outside of those county boundaries there was no chance of precipitation on the burn scar areas.”
According to SOAR’s application, “This weather modification activity will be a non-randomized cloud seeding operational program for the primary purpose of increasing rainfall,” which the company said has been proven to increase precipitation in neighboring Texas, where the Thunderstorm Identification, Tracking, Analysis and Nowcasting (TITAN) program has been used to evaluate weather modification projects for the past 20 years.
“Evaluations have shown an increase of roughly 15 percent across the Texas target areas, with some areas seeing upwards of 2 inches of additional rainfall from operational cloud seeding,” the company said. “Aircraft will be used to deliver the seeding agent,” silver iodide and/or calcium chloride flares, and “suspension of cloud seeding in a county or part of a county will occur when a warning is issued by the National Weather Service.”
The company also included summaries of specific seeding operations last year, including a report regarding what it said was a successful June 28 flight.
“Storms were seeded in Roosevelt and Lea County as favorable dynamical forcing was in place over the region,” the report states. “Cells were seeded near Dora before pushing further south near Lovington with both clusters responding well to our efforts.”
Before voting to approved the application, Commissioner Paula Garcia called for a “more robust regulatory framework for cloud seeding in general.”
Garcia, a Mora County resident who serves as executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Association, sits on the ISC’s Weather Control Committee with Commissioner Aron Balok.
“It’s probably a good time to revisit our rule and really see if it’s adequate, based on the concerns we’re receiving from the public,” Garcia said.