BOARD00272

• Board Meeting Date: 7/28/2003
• Description: Flood Section - Weather Modification Program
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

The project is funded by Durango Mountain Resort, Dolores Water Conservancy District, Southwestern
. Water Conservation District, La Plata Water Conservancy District, City of Durango, Pine River Irrigation
District, Southern Ute Tribe, and San Juan Water Commission,
A total of 29 storm events were seeded from November 4, 2002 though April 7, 2003, A special
extension was requested to the CWCB and granted for two weeks in April to capture a series of late
season storm events, A total of 50 days were seeded, 3691 total hours of generator operation, and
approximately 27300.45 grams of silver iodide were released through the generators,
The San Juan Water Commission of Fanning ton New Mexico paid Western Weather Consultants
approximately $36,000 to continue operations through the remainder of the spring 2002 to seed the entire
Upper Animas and La Plata River Basins, This marks possibly the first time that cloud seeding operations
were funded in Colorado by New Mexico to benefit streamflow into New Mexico,

Town of Telluride /Upper San Miguel Basin
Program: The program originally applied for and
was granted a permit in 1998 that expired in 2002,
The public hearing was controversial and the
nearby town of Ophir was concerned with
additional avalanche danger. In 2002 the San
Miguel program renewed their five-year permit
and there were essentially no objectors, The total
program costs were $46,867 and a 2%
commercial fee of $937 was collected by the state.
From November through mid February a total of
18 events were seeded on 35 days, The total
operation time by generators was 891 hours and
6011 grams of silver iodide were released,

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Grand Mesa Program: The program was developed and a permit issued in 1999, The program is
funded by the Grand Mesa Water Enhancement
Authority and is run by Colorado River District
Board Member and Consultant Meteorologist Pete
Kasper. The program seeds the Grand Mesa and
part of the West Elk Mountains and has generators
close to the Gunnison County Program run by
North American Weather Consultants. Two
generators were not operational for the last three
years but were put back into used at the request of
the Grand Mesa Conservancy District in 2002
bringing the total to 13 generators used in 2002-03.
A total of 17 storms were seeded from December
Iz'h through April Iz'h, A total of 1333 hours of
generator time was used that output 8001 grams of
silver iodide,

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