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Bad Seed Ranchers oppose cloud seeding at hearing The Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District faced a tough crowd this month at a public hearing to continue its cloud-seeding program. "This is hocus-pocus," said Amarillo rancher Jay O'Brien. "I am a landowner in the district," said Tom Bivins, an Amarillo rancher. "I am adamantly opposed to cloud seeding and do not want this license renewed at all." Jonathan Steinberg, general counsel with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations, said the state agency will decide in March whether to grant the weather modification license to the district. The agency can approve, deny or modify the permit. Steinberg said the agency's meeting March 6 concerning the permit will be streamed live on the Internet. The PGCD has held a weather modification license since 2000 and it was renewed in 2004. The current permit is due to expire March 13. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations, which issues permits in 25 occupational or service areas, received more than 25 letters from people opposing the license renewal. In its application, the district outlined the target area for cloud seeding in an effort to increase rainfall as all or part of eight counties in the Texas Panhandle. These counties — Potter, Carson, Gray, Wheeler, Hutchinson, Roberts, Donley and Armstrong — are in the district. The district also outlined a 15-mile buffer zone around the district where it intended to track and seed clouds coming into the district. These counties include parts of Randall, Deaf Smith, Oldham, Hartley, Moore, Hutchinson, Hansford, Ochiltree, Lipscomb, Hemphill, Collingsworth, Childress, Hall, Briscoe and Swisher in Texas and Ellis, Roger Mills and Beckham Counties in western Oklahoma. Most of the letters objecting to the cloud seeding came from outside the district. Of the 14 speakers, most cited anecdotal evidence of seeing planes near clouds and seeing clouds dissipating or of problems with weather modifications in neighboring water conservation districts. Those weather modification programs have ceased. In a presentation at the hearing, Jennifer Wright, the meteorologist for the district, compared the average rainfall in the Texas Panhandle to the district's average rainfall from April to September, the normal cloud-seeding season. It was about 1.24 inches above the regional average, she said. Each month was slightly higher in the seeded area than the regional average except for July and August. The regional average in July was 2.53 inches, while the seeded area averaged 2.51 inches. The regional average in August was 2.66 inches, while the seeded area received 2.52 inches. The seasonal total for the Panhandle was 15.18 inches of rain, while for the seeded area, it was 16.42 inches. Each county, Wright says, saw an overall increase in total rainfall in 2007, although the timing of the rain was dependent upon weather systems moving into the area. To the charge that PGCD planes were seen in or near clouds that dissipated, C.E. Williams, PGCD general manager, said there are an average of 450 flights daily by private planes in the area. In a heated exchange with Williams, O'Brien said the district violated its previous permit by seeding clouds in Briscoe County, which under the old permit had been removed from the buffer zone. Wright, after checking her records of the flight track, said she was unaware of the lack of a buffer zone there and that the plane did indeed go about a mile into Briscoe County. The hearing officials say the district's plane, like any other planes, may fly anywhere they wish. The problem would arise if they seeded outside the boundary areas defined in the permit, but agency officials say they've received no official complaints. "I cannot imagine you would take somebody who has admitted to violating their permit and issue them a new permit," O'Brien said. O'Brien said he operates in six of the seven counties that make up the district and has submitted petitions to PGCD from landowners or operators that represented more than 75 percent of the landmass in Potter and Donley Counties, and more than 50 percent of the landmass in the district, objecting to the program, but they were ignored. O'Brien said he was told he had to have petitions signed by more than half of the population of the district. "We're ranchers," O'Brien said. "We don't have time to go get petitions of over half the population, so we have not done that." O'Brien said that, during the presentation by the district, they said they flew in the counties, but were not seeding. "If we accept the truth of that statement," O'Brien says, "They're using our tax dollars to fly around in the counties. I guess they're joy-riding if they're not seeding. That's a poor use of our tax dollars." O'Brien said that the areas around PGCD have voted to do away with their weather modification programs. He said the program is hurting one person for the benefit of another. He claims that the people outside the district are being hurt, but the people inside the district are benefiting. "If they do quit seeding in the areas around their district," O'Brien said, "there are people such as myself whose ranch is on the very border of one of the counties who will then be hurt because we will be the outlying area." O'Brien also attacked the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations for not notifying him of February's meeting, although Steinberg said notices ran in an Amarillo newspaper as required. Dale Smith of Potter County said the Panhandle Livestock Association passed a resolution several years ago calling for a halt to the program. E-mail
comments about this story Posted: February 28, 2008
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