Residents urge Mount Shasta council to investigate alleged aerial 'spraying' and commission independent testing

Tatiana Gonzalez, an herbalist and AI consultant, told the Mount Shasta City Council that independent snow tests "showed 10 times the legal amount of barium and aluminum," and urged officials to authorize testing rather than wait until contamination is discovered by outside investigators. "If we do not test and the contamination exists and it eventually becomes public… the community will ask, did you know?" Gonzalez said.

Speakers across 14 public‑comment slots asked the council to treat the reports seriously. "Mount Shasta is not an ordinary mountain," Cheyenne, a resident, said, describing the mountain as sacred to Indigenous peoples and warning that springs and snowmelt from Mount Shasta feed the Sacramento River and downstream water supplies. "What we protect here, we protect for 40,000,000 people downstream," she said.

Anastasia Stevens, who displayed a printed copy of U.S. Patent No. 5,003,186, read passages that she said describe a method "for reducing atmospheric warming… by seeding the atmosphere with metallic particles," and noted the patent specifies aluminum oxide particles deployed at stratospheric altitudes. "These are public documents," Stevens said, and she asked the council to notice that patents exist alongside independent sample results.

Kim Daniel, the final speaker in the sign‑up list, presented draft resolution language modeled on Tennessee legislation and requested tiered actions for the council: commission independent laboratory testing of local precipitation and spring water for aluminum, barium, zirconium and other heavy metals (estimated $10,000–$25,000); submit Freedom of Information Act requests to FAA, EPA, NOAA, Department of Defense and CIA for records related to atmospheric modification; request NOAA weather‑modification activity reports for Siskiyou County; and demand proof of any NEPA environmental impact statement for programs affecting the region. "If no EIS exists, the program is operating in violation of federal law, and we will pursue that violation through every legal action available," Daniel said in closing.

Other commenters described independent lab figures they said showed aluminum concentrations multiple times higher than EPA secondary standards for aluminum in drinking water (the speakers cited EPA ranges and reported extreme sample values in testimony), and urged verified third‑party sampling protocols and chain‑of‑custody procedures. Evan Drake, who said he represents the Siskiyou Housing Alliance at community events, and others urged the council to "follow the money" by reviewing budgets and contracts linked to weather‑modification research and commercial operations.

Council members did not take immediate action to adopt the requested resolution during the meeting. The moderator said staff and council would need time to review the large packet of materials provided by speakers; staff and council members indicated willingness to read the documents and suggested next steps could include consulting third‑party laboratories and evaluating legal options if tests or records support further action. The meeting packet includes the draft resolution and sample data referenced by speakers.

The public record cited during testimony included patent documents and federal statutes and statutes referenced by commenters (patent citations provided in public comment; transcript references include "United States patent number 5003186," the Clean Air Act citizen‑suit provision (42 U.S.C. § 7604) and the National Environmental Policy Act), and commenters requested NOAA weather‑modification reports and FOIA responses from federal agencies as part of the requested follow‑up.

Next step: council staff said they will review the packet and the materials submitted by public commenters; no formal council resolution or directive was adopted at the meeting. If the council chooses to pursue testing or records requests, staff indicated the city would return with cost estimates and suggested procedures; speakers requested that any sampling be done by EPA‑approved laboratories with chain‑of‑custody documentation.