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'""\ WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 96-5 FOR THE PERIOD MAY 11 - MAY 17, 1996 General Interest: Oklahoma is on the verge of initiating a large- scale drought relief program using cloud seeding a~ a ~eans to combat it The state legislature passed emergency leg~slat~9n late last week.and sent it on to the gover~or, ~hich he has indica~ed.he will sign. Details are lacking at th~spo~n~, ho~ever, $1 ~ll~on is the figure quoted by some close, to the s~tuat~on ~s the amount to be appropriated. The program w~ll, be for just th~s one s~er and then only to increase rainfall. High ~erfo7Illance p~ane~ w~ll pam:-=-:::c::teclcuds at higheraltit,l1-;es !,\p.f?dlng w~th dry ~ce ~n the same manner we do with our cloud top plane on our Western Kansas Weather Modification Program. Later this summer if beneficial rains have fallen and some seeding has been done, 'both the legislature and ,the governo~ will claim having made a wise decision. If generally w~desp!ead ra~ns do not return and little seeding is done, both the legLslatures and the governor can say they "did everything" to break the drought. It would be gratifying, however, if what was going on there was a beginning of something to help solve a long-term problem they have instead of an ending. Here in Western and Southwestern Kansas those steps were taken 22 years ago. In the best interests of Oklahoma's agricultural economy, officials- should embark on a rational program to pursue long-term objectives to maximize usable precipitation and minimize crop-damaging hail in their state. Unfortunately, since this year is a high stakes one, politically, attempting to solve long-term problems with once only short-term fixes, is likely to be the order of the day. Ana, if the water shortage problem isn't 'fixed' by election time, undoubtedly its importance at legislative and executive levels will be diminished greatly and no one will have to worry about it again until another drought hits on a future election cycle. . Still no word from Colorado regarding the status of our permit to seed clouds in Eastern Colorado. It's been a month since we were pr~mised a decision one way or another. One wonders whether the political winds also have blown away the integrity of the leadership at the Colorado Water Resources Board and corrupted their permit process, one which was designed to evaluate on fact; not on fiction or emotion. Just as Eastern Colorado commissioners prObably aren't very popular with many farmers in bordering Kansas counties, probably, too, they won't be held in very high esteem either by farmers in the Oklahoma Panhandle once it's learned cloud seeding to relieve their drought will be restricted by Colorado. Since no permit has been given to seed clouds in Colorado, Oklahoma farmers probably would suffer the same fate---cloud seeding planes would not be allowed to seed clouds in Colorado although clouds were moving into Oklahoma from Colorado.