Panel weighs 10‑year cloud‑seeding moratorium and baseline study; agencies recommend UW coordination and independent experts

The Agriculture, State & Public Lands & Water Resources Committee spent the second half of the session reviewing draft bill 26LSO0210, which would impose a 10‑water‑year moratorium on cloud‑seeding and require state baseline monitoring and an independent study before the state resumes operations.

Under the draft, the moratorium would run for ten consecutive water years beginning Oct. 1, 2026. The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) — or, at the committee’s direction, another designated agency — would collect baseline measures including precipitation, snow‑water equivalent, streamflow and reservoir inflows, geographic precipitation distribution and impacts on agriculture, municipalities, tribal lands and downstream obligations. The statute directs a preliminary report within two years and a final report with recommendations not later than Dec. 1, 2035, and contemplates contracting outside independent experts to conduct the study. The draft includes criminal penalties for unauthorized…