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Roosevelt Soil & Water district presents cloud-seeding results and safety evidence
Summary
Roosevelt Soil and Water Conservation District reported nearly 700,000 shade balls moved to stock tanks and preliminary cloud-seeding data from 15 collected days showing measurable extra rainfall in some counties; staff urged multi-year study and provided references on silver-iodide safety.
Mike Con, representing the Roosevelt Soil & Water Conservation District, gave a detailed update on local conservation projects and a resumed rain-enhancement (cloud-seeding) program.
Con said the district has moved nearly 700,000 shade balls onto stock tanks to reduce evaporation and improve water quality. He described a rain-enhancement season funded at nearly $1 million and noted seeding operations ran in July, August and September. The district collected usable data for 15 of 39 operational days and reported county-level increases in measured precipitation over that subset of days — for example, Curry County showed an extra inch and Roosevelt County recorded a reported increase (described as a fraction of an inch in the presentation).
On safety concerns, Con addressed silver-iodide questions directly. “This is not a cure, this is not a fix … all this is a tool to help with what's already going to happen,” he said, and he cited multiple studies and the long record of cloud-seeding use in states such as California to argue against meaningful environmental accumulation of silver iodide in target areas. He offered the commission materials and links to the feasibility and technical studies and suggested a decade of data would be needed to determine long-term viability.
Commissioners and attendees asked whether seeding had continued past Sept. 30; Con said operations stopped at the end of the season and that public-facing flight information (tail numbers on FlightAware) and written studies would be made available for transparency.
The commission accepted the presentation and discussed providing a letter of support to legislators to sustain funding as the district seeks additional legislative appropriations.
