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San Luis Valley Hail Cannons: Director Kuharich renewed the permit for the Southern Colorado Farms hail cannon operations for the period of June 15-Setember 15, 2007 base on compliance and data collection in 2006. A public meeting will be held in Center, Colorado either May 21 or 22, not to discuss the permit, but to again gain support for a volunteer network of rain and hail data collectors. The CWCB will again spend limited funding for the Colorado Climate Center to assist in the tabulation and analyzing of rain and hail data. In addition the CWCB hopes to attain Belford rain gages from the USBR and employ the services of two retired USBR meteorologists Dr. Ed Holyrod and Jack McPartland for the set up of this equipment. One of the key issues is that Southern Colorado Farms provided the in target area observations but that more upwind, downwind and cross wind observations will be needed to see any trends in rainfall and hail totals. On a side _..._b_O.______ note cloud seeding started with the cold box experiments in the 1950s by Irving Langmuir, Bernard V onnegut, and Vince Shafer when they discovered that breathing into a cloud chamber created a great many tiny ice crystals (see graphic). This lead to airplane experiments with dry ice and clouds in Schenectady, NY that confirmed you can stimulate precipitation in clouds. These scientists have since past on but Dr. Holyrod was a student of them and resides in the Denver area. Although recently retired Dr. Holyrod provides demonstrations of the cold box experiments. The next on is at the Community College of Aurora on May 10th. ~ Rio Grande Basin . . Rio Grande joins most-endangered list: The Rio Grande joins the Ganges River on the World Wildlife Fund's list of the world's top 10 most endangered rivers, both of which are threatened by overuse. The report, released this week, says the Rio Grande, known as the Rio Bravo in Mexico, is threatened by the diversion of too much water, an altered flood plain, dams and invasive plants. The Rio Grande, like some of the other rivers on the list, struggles to reach the ocean, according to the report. 400 million people in the United States and Mexico depend on it for drinking water, farming and their economies. By comparison, 200 million people in Nepal, India and Bangladesh depend on the Ganges. On the southern 200-mile stretch of the Rio Grande, the river's health is threatened by the mowing of native and invasive species and livestock grazing. The World Wildlife Fund has been working with Elephant Butte farmers on conserving irrigation water and leasing some water to leave in the river. The irrigators were interested in helping restore wetlands areas and wildlife habitat. The organization is .. 27