BOARD00179 ‎(2)‎

• Board Meeting Date: 5/23/2007
• Description: Director's Report - CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Weather Modification Annual Conference: The Weather Modification Association
(WMA) and North American Interstate WeatHer Modification Council (NAIWMC)
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annual conference and meetings were in San ~rancisco April 16-20. Staff member Joe
Busto was elected chair of the NAIWMC after :serving two years as vice-chair. Tom Ryan
of the Metro Water District of Southern California was elected Vice-chair and this team
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should be well positioned to assist the collabor.ative cloud seeding effort through the
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Colorado River Seven Basin States Negotiations by teaming cloud seeding contractors
with applied researchers with the goal of opti~izing current cloud seeding programs in
Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. The WMA is c9mprised of operators and researchers
and their key mission is to provide a forum to provide scientific presentations and
publish referred journal articles. The NAIWMG: is comprised of nine state
representatives focused on sharing informatiort, coordinating activities and securing
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federal partnerships and research assistance. Iiighlights areas follows:
· The 2008 WMA conference will be held in the Denver/Boulder area in concert with
the American Meteorological Society. This donference will be assisted by NCAR,
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NOAA Boulder, with some help from the CWCB and there will be presentations on
both Advertent (intentional weather modifi~ation) and Inadvertent Weather
modification (air pollution and global warrrling).
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· The WMA hopes to get the Western States Covernor's to attend to see what their
issues are and then present the most recent fesearch.
· An EA by Pacific Gas and Electric required thy the USFS for a special use permit once
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again found no bio-accumulation of silver ir\ the environment. Silver levels were
100-1000 times below toxic levels in the sno~pack, reservoirs, and streams.
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Weather Modification Congressional Bills:!The CWCB joined the states of Nevada,

Kansas, Texas, Utah, Oklahoma, and North Dakota with assistance from the Western
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States Water Council in late February 2007 for tWenty meetings with U.S. Congress and
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the Chief of Staff at NOAA Scott Rayder that were aimed at showing support for the
reintroduction of legislation for a coordinated n~tional weather modification research
program. S.517 Hutchison-R-TX and HR 2995 U~all-D-CO were companion weather
modification research bills in the 109th Congress that were met with opposition after
initial interest in weather modification in the post hurricane Katrina era and then stalled
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over the issues of hurricane modification and its ~mplications to liability and
international treaties. Indeed posing the questiorls he would get through committees
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Scott Rayder chief of staff at NOAA asked us, "IfiI got $100M for research why wouldn't
NOAA study hurricanes?" The western state representatives agreed hurricane losses
like the $65B from Katrina are a huge issue but as! well crop losses through hail damage
and drought and water supply issues were a $6B/i}'r problem in the western states. The
latest information at the time of this director's rer,ort were that both Udall and
Hutchison were going to reintroduce the bills in !\(fay and the Director of the National
Science Foundation was interested in a weather modification research program.
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Director Kuharich provided an update to the Western States Water Council in early May
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