Water officials in Pinal County experimented with cloud seeding technology to boost rainfall over the summer, just months after bills that would have banned the practice failed to gain traction at the state Legislature.
Cloud seeding is the process of releasing tiny particles, like silver iodide or salts, into existing clouds to increase precipitation. The practice, first discovered in the 1940s, is widely considered safe, though its effectiveness is still the subject of research.
Over the summer, the Pinal County Water Augmentation Authority ran a test between July and September to find out whether the technology could help boost rainfall in the area.
Joe Singleton, the authority’s executive director, told lawmakers at a Dec. 11 meeting of the Arizona House Committee on Natural Resources that the test took place between July 1 and Sept. 30. During that time, a total of 30 flights seeded clouds with salts in areas around Casa Grande.
The process is permitted by the Arizona Department of Water Resources in accordance with state law.
Results
According to the final report on the Pinal County experiment, the three-month test may have resulted in an additional 0.47 inches of rainfall and in 134,192 acre feet of water. For comparison, one acre-foot is typically enough water to serve three single-family homes for a year, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
However, Singleton told lawmakers those numbers are just estimations.
“It may be a very high estimate, and it's a very gross number,” he said. “So it's not accounting for anything like evaporation that might have occurred in there, runoff or anything else.”
But he said the potential benefits are worth looking into. He said, if those figures hold up, cloud seeding would cost around $3 per acre foot. Comparatively, a plan to expand Bartlett Dam northeast of Phoenix to capture more surface water could cost $10,000 per acre foot.
“So if I can maybe produce water somewhere in the area of $3 an acre foot, our board felt it was worth it to go try,” he said.
Clouds or chemtrails?
The Pinal County Water Augmentation Authority started its test run days after the end of the last state legislative session. During that session, Republican lawmakers backed two bills that sought to geoengineering, including cloud seeding.
One of those bills, sponsored by Rep. Lisa Fink (R-Glendale), passed out of the House’s Committee on Regulatory Oversight with the support of dozens of speakers, who rehashed the debunked “chemtrails” conspiracy theory, according to the Arizona Mirror.
That theory incorrectly claims that water vapor trails left by airplanes are actually harmful chemicals being sprayed on the ground below by bad actors.
Fink’s bill failed to pass out of the full House. A similar piece of legislation sponsored by Sen. David Farnsworth (R-Mesa) only passed out of the Senate after the ban on cloud seeding was removed, though it also failed to pass out of the House.
Lawmaker reactions
During the meeting on Dec. 11, Fink didn’t mention chemtrails.
Instead, she focused on the need to give residents transparency about what, if anything, is being sprayed from planes above Arizona communities.
“And so the public does have a right to know what substances are being sprayed around, above or on them,” Fink said.
While most of the meeting focused on the cloud seeding experiment in Pinal County, lawmakers and state officials also discussed solar radiation management, which would have been banned by both Fink and Farnsworth’s legislation.
Daniel Czecholinski with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality told lawmakers solar radiation management refers to releasing small particles or other materials to reflect sunlight and reduce temperatures. He said most studies are currently looking at the effectiveness of that technology but not much is known about the long-term impacts on the environment or human health.
“So the science is not caught up with the thought or the research, right? The research still needs to happen,” Czecholinski said.
By comparison, cloud seeding can be traced back to the 1940s.
“I think cloud seeding has been discussed for years. I know at least 30 years,” said Rep. Gail Griffin (R-Hereford), a longtime lawmaker who chairs the Natural Resources Committee.
James Walter, a meteorologist with Salt River Project, said SRP and others experimented with cloud seeding in the 1940s, '50s and '60s.
“And so the first time it was ever done in Arizona was in 1947, where a professor from the Phoenix College and the Arizona Republic actually leased out an airplane and attempted it themselves,” he said.
But news of the new cloud seeding project in Pinal County didn’t sit well with the Republican lawmakers who represent the area.
Casa Grande Reps. Teresa Martinez and Chris Lopez, both Republicans, said they know many members of the Pinal water augmentation board well, but they had no idea the experiment was going on.
“And I'm offended and insulted that you would do this kind of thing without notifying your representatives, doing a more robust outreach for the public, and not having all the data,” Martinez said.
Singleton said the idea was discussed multiple times in meetings open to the public, and the final report on the experiment is now available on the organization’s website.
There were also questions about whether the Pinal County cloud seeding project played any role in recent flooding events across Arizona, including in Maricopa, which is located near where the experiment took place.
Similar questions were asked in Texas after deadly flooding in that state over the summer — though experts said there was no connection.
Singleton said he did not believe the trial run contributed to the flooding in Maricopa on Aug. 14, because there was no seeding going on shortly before that event.
The official report shows that the Pinal cloud seeding operation was active on Aug. 3 and did not disperse again until Aug. 16.
Lopez also asked whether the operation could have contributed to microbursts in Maricopa and Gila counties in September. That includes devastating flooding in Globe on Sept. 25 and 26.
“Not to my knowledge,” Singleton said.
According to the Utah Division of Water Resources, studies in that state showed cloud seeding may increase precipitation up to 75 miles downwind — potentially putting Globe within range of the Pinal County experiment.
However, according to the North Dakota Atmospheric Resource Board, the effects of seeding can be seen relatively quickly within 30 minutes. And data from the PCWAA shows the Pinal County operation seeded on Sept. 21, four days before a storm surge led to flash floods that inundated Globe.
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