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I'm Dave Nazar.

Water.

We cannot survive without it.

Water is the basic building block of life.

So how can having extra water be controversial?

Well, have you heard the term cloud seeding?

Cloud modification, even weather modification?

These are basically technical terms to describe what is often referre to as controlling the weather.

This is a decades old science that is now getting a lot of publicity these days, partly due to the controversy surrounding this process.

Some say cloud seeding is a great science that can, for example, create rain in drought plagued regions.

Others say cloud seeding is a mad science that creates flooding and destroys the environment.

And some even argue this is nothing more than globalists trying to tak over the world or the weather.

In this case, we're going to hear both arguments for more about this subject.

We first traveled to Riverside, California and the Santa Ana watershed to talk with some water expert who are now using cloud seeding to try and bring more water to the Golden State.

A collaboration of wate districts in Southern California recently began a pilot program to study how cloud seeding can bring much needed rain to drought plagued parts of San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties in China.

They're waging war on the weather.

A drought so severe they're firing rockets into the sky to make it rain.

The practice is known as cloud seeding.

Drones and rockets are used to sow silver iodide into the clouds.

The substance has a similar structure to ice, and changes the cloud structur to increase the chance of rain.

With a small pop and a puff of smoke.

Cloud seeding is done in the hills above Pasadena.

The generators are actually controlled by a crew in Utah.

Think of a mission control type of setting.

They're able to watch exactly what's happening with the camera that's mounted here.

Before any of these canisters are triggered were carefully looking at the.

Weather patterns, the wind patterns.

The cloud seeding project could result in additions to the rainfal that we receive in the region.

The Water Conservation District work where we're a small, small organization, bu we have over 70 recharge basins, that are capabl of recharging over 80,000 acre feet of water every year.

We recharged over 80,000 acre feet in 2023.

And but the last time that w recharged that much was in 1923.

So the infrastructure is there.

The infrastructure is just waiting for water to be available.

So with cloud seeding, if it works the way we think it could, we could see this infrastructure that's already built be put to use more days out of the year than it currently is, and we could see more recharge into the basin that way.

Betsy Miller is the general manager of the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District located in Southern California.

Miller is talking about the new cloud seeding pilot project she and her district are participating in.

The project is part of the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, or Sapa, as it's known.

Miller and her district are one of the five agencies that comprise the Santa Ana Watershed.

The 100 mile Santa Ana River runs from the San Bernardino Mountains west through the mountain valley, draining an area of some 20 700mi through San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange counties, eventually on out to the Pacific Ocean.

A watershed can be considered a drainage basin of sorts.

It collects all the wate that falls as snowmelt or rain, and then the water is either captured within the watershed or distributed to the ocean.

For some history the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District was originally founded in the late 1800s, back then as a voluntary associatio of the local farming community.

That's because throughout th 1800s, massive drought overtook the region, much like today in California, resulting in limited groundwater.

Local farmers, with the help of the association, realiz the overwhelming need to monitor the water levels in the local aquifer and basically begin recharging the water so there was enough of a supply for the future.

Well, fast forward several decades.

This water district formally became a government agency in the early 1930s, and ever since then, that plan of water stewardship continues toda with the conservation district to make sure there's sufficient SoCal water for its users.

The region's changed quite a bit.

We used to be primarily agriculture to.

Today, we still proudly serve our agricultural community, but a lot of the water that's now pumped out of the basin serves industry.

Along with homes.

So up to 70% of the water that comes out of a faucet in the upper watershed at any given tim was at one point in the aquifer.

So we're trying something new.

And with all the change in the world, with our increasing population, we need to keep trying new things.

But the way this project was set up is not just to try something new, but also to study what we're doing.

So the theory is that with this, this program will get more, potentially more rainfall in the upper watershed.

We could see improvements in our forest health.

We could se increased resilience to drought, increased resilience to insect infestations for our forests.

But we don't know for sure.

And so we're going to study it that we could get a little more water in the upper watershed and that that water through our facilities could be recharged into the aquifer.

Basi levels are still at record lows.

We have some wells that are down 200ft, 300ft.

And that's not the direction we want.

That's not what we want to see for our region.

So the opportunity to to recharge more water really is that that hedge for our region, our ability to be resilient i the face of a changing climate, in the face of population growth so that we can continue to maintain our quality of life, our standard of living, our economy here in the region.

Opponents of this science say the silver iodide from cloud seeding used to increase precipitation is a toxic pollutant.

Some claim the cumulative impacts of inadvertent weather modification could result in dangerous climate alterations, changes that can negatively affect air quality, ecosystems, water resources.

While many critics of cloud seeding argue this science process causes harm to the environment, Miller believes this process, based upon the sort of stud so far, is safe and effective.

Based on the information that I've heard to date, it appears to be a, a very positive program that doesn't present a lot of negatives.

But again, the important the importance of how the program's being developed, the pilot that's currently underway is that we're studying that.

So before any in theory, it seems like a great idea.

But before we roll that out, we'll have the information, to be sure, befor a larger program is undertaken.

Really?

Everyone benefits if there's a little bit more water available in the upper watershed.

So any industry that uses water, any farmer that irrigates with well water, every single person who takes a drink or drinks a glass of wate in the upper watershed benefits.

There's there's indications from the data that we have to date that additional rainfall could support populations of things like, California net catcher and cactus rain, as well.

Bruce Whittaker is also working with the Sant Ana Watershed Project Authority.

Whittaker is the director of the Orange County Water District, one of the five Southern California agencies who are part of this collaboration, and they all work to control and improve conditions of the Santa Ana River throughout the watershed.

Well, coming off, four years of drought, we were looking to increas options for our water portfolio and about five years that aren't so wet.

So we're constantl trying to find, alternative ways of augmenting and not being so reliant on imported water.

Cloud seeding has been done successfully for many years.

Santa Barbara and in 11 states.

And s we looked into the possibility.

And if it, if it produces the way we think it would, it's a very cost effective way to be more self-reliant, on our water needs and less reliant on imported sources.

Like Betsy Miller.

Bruce Whittaker believes cloud seeding and the pilot project that are participating in is good science, a process that could potentially help millions of southern California residents with their water usage.

Certainly, there are the detractors of this science who disagree.

In some cases, even blame cloud seeding for unnatural and hazardous weather events.

For example, in Dubai during April of 2024, when over a year's worth of rain fell in just 24 hours, submerging the normally arid Mideast Gulf region and igniting a theor that cloud seeding was to blame.

In that 24 hours, massive rains flooded parts of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman, and some people throughout the world began blogging, insisting this area never gets that kind of rainfall or storm clusters, thus sparking their cloud seeding theories.

Whitaker says his water district has been studying these types of weather events all over the world, including Dubai.

And while he says it's easy to blame cloud seeding for that event, the reality is there are so many different weather variables that could have caused this type of catastrophic flooding.

And he says it's just too difficult to know for certain what the exact cause was.

Even here in Southern California this past year, there were much heavier than normal rains that caused a lot of flooding in parts of LA orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, leading some skeptics here to also theorize the SoCal storms could possibly have been due to cloud seeding, even from this pilot project.

However, Whitaker also says in so Cal's case, cloud seeding is probably not to blame due to all the varianc in Southern California weather.

Our pilot program, we've put in many safeguards to allow us to make decisions whether to pull the trigger or not on utilizing the, the, cloud seeding.

And I think that with improved weather forecasting, which we're doing very much with Firo, is going to be helpful.

It helps us identify atmospheric rivers and their potentiality and their direction, and allow us to decide where to sharpshooting.

We're not doing just an overall, you know, spraying of, of material to create, precipitation.

But we're sharpshooting and through this test period, our pilot program for the next few years, we're going to be very, conscious of what we're doing and maybe what the perceived effect is.

And we're going to analyz at the back end and understand whether it's, successful, whether it's, doing what we thought it would, weather we're not creating harm.

You know, safety is our number one consideration.

So people need to be aware that, we all are residents in this region, and we certainly don't want to create any harm or cause any flooding.

We think the, possibility of that is quite low.

What we're doing is, ground based cloud seeding, and so we don't really have plans.

We're not putting pilots in jeopardy during, terrific storms or anything like that.

So we are blessed with our geography here, which allows us on the slopes and the mountains, really, which are our backdro for the watershed to set these, automated high output generating stations.

They're like to a Christmas tree, like a flare.

Pretty much, they ignite automatically, remotely, when they're directed to.

And that sets up the heat.

The warmth actually brings it up the slopes and up into the clouds.

And so it's, a very cost effective way of dealing with it.

Some cultures use they fire rockets into low level clouds, and many use, air seeding.

And there are differen types of clouds hitting as well, including salts.

And to buy these salts, more or less, we have, silver iodide, which is very microscopically small dust, more or less, which is quite inert and has not been proven to be toxic or really be a health hazard at all.

And by allowing natura processes, the natural air flows to carry that up into the clouds.

It's a fairly organic wa that we're approaching things.

And if there is no harm an Whittaker believes there's not, this water expert says cloud seeding is going to help a large part of the Southern California population especially during drought season or during an emergency drought declaration, of which there have been many ove the years in the Golden State.

We're hoping that, when we analyze results here, we'll find, very little in the way of, of a harmful side of side effect of any at all.

We, we have, 6 million people who live within our watershed that would be, larger than 31 state's population.

So we're very interested in achieving the most benefit for all those people all the residents, businesses, everyone who lives here.

We're more urbanized than most areas where cloud seeding has been happening over time.

And so we are going to be a little bit of a test case to try to understand how, these units coexist, in fairly close proximity, sometimes with, residential areas.

Rachel Gray is the water resources and planning manager at the Santa Ana Watershed Projects Authority.

She explains more about Southwest Plan.

So southwest for your pilot program is designed to target the higher elevation mountain that drain into the watershed.

And so the intent or the goal of the program is to generate additional precipitation in the form of snow and rain that that that the can be captured as stormwater.

Also, we have a total of 15 ground based cloud seeding units that are located across the watershed, and they release silver iodide particulates into the cloud to help generat additional precipitation for us.

So our project meteorologist he looks at the storm conditions and assesse the suitability of each storm.

And so the conditions that he looks at includes the cloud type and the cloud structure.

And then the cloud temperatures is very important.

So specifically, we'd like to see the cloud temperature below a -5°C or 23°F.

And then a wind direction is really important.

So all these conditions are considered before a storm is considered to be suitable.

And the first day of cloud seeding was successful.

We performed cloud seedin during 12 storms this past year.

I would like to highlight that we did not cloud seeding all the storms because some of the storms did not meet the conditions for seeding.

And then in other, other, for other events, we actuall enacted our suspension criteria where there were large successive storms.

So we did not see those storms.

Our program targets the four mountain ranges that surround the watershed.

And so the mountains facilitate the rise of silver iodide, particulates into the clouds.

And operations plan was developed, and we got input from the flood control districts.

But identify specific criteria that avoid floods, that avoids debris flows.

We take into consideration their burn scars.

Also, we have criteria that looks at severe storms and large successive storms.

So all those element are considered before we decide to seed or not to.

Ronald Stine is the author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book Clean Energy Exploitations.

He is an international energy consultant and has done extensive research about cloud seeding.

We spoke with Stine recently to discuss his concerns with this science process.

What is your opinion about this new pilot project?

Cloud seeding is another man made effort to manipulate the climate.

You know, you take a look at the wealthy countries, totally wealthy countries that are doing these crazy things.

So trying to seed the cloud and trying to generate electricity, from wind and solar, that takes advantage of developing countries.

And I tend to look at the globe, and the globe is been around for about 4 billion years.

And you know, we have a million people, a billion people living on this planet.

And ironically, two years ago, it was only 1 billion.

But because of all the product we've been able to get out of, there was oil derivatives.

We've grown from one day billion in less than 200 years.

And we have wealthy countries that are manipulating things in the poor developing countries, or they're in like, say, they're in bad shape.

There's a staggering almost 345 million people experiencing acute hunger, you know, and the number has more than doubled since the pandemic 2019.

You know, considering this calamity, in view of the concern over CO2 levels, you know, how can fellow human beings continue in clou seeding as just another taxpayer funded toy to manipulate the climate?

Yet wrong, to be fair to the project, isn't cloud seeding a good thing in.

This sense.

That it can bring this much needed water to these drought plagued regions?

Yeah, well, much needed.

In whose opinion?

You know, the Earth has been around for billion years and it's going to exist when man's not here.

And, and there was going to be a world of seed clouds, you know, we didn't have planes before.

And, we've run out of crew.

We won't have planes available to see the cloud.

So it's just a temporary fix to meet our current needs.

If you really want water, you know get a pipeline from Mississippi.

You know, bring in the water, you know, to the west or, you know, bring in tankers.

But, you know, build reservoirs to hold the water.

You want to have in reserve fuel reserves, build a reserve.

Are you concerned about this.

Silver iodide compound.

That is used.

In this process of cloud seeding?

I am not.

The Earth is so, so big.

You know, when you take a look at the Earth, 70% of the Earth is water, and the other 30% is land, and mos that land is not even habitable because it's mountains and desert.

And, you know, man's presence on Earth is so minuscule.

The, you know, the the cloud seeding i not going to affect the climate.

So what are more of your concerns about this?

I was reading some of your writings that you had researched about cloud seeding, and you were talking about the financials.

The financials are the concern.

I wasn't sur you were talking about exactly.

I don't think it's really righ to have taxpayers pay for this, because the the programs at different cities have is whatever the budget is, it's funded with taxpayer money.

And I don't thin that's the proper way to do it to help taxpayers pay for the ceiling.

You also said in one of your books, if I'm not mistaken, is that this is sort of sort of a globalist view of the world and a globalist attempt to kind of control the weather, if I'm not mistaken.

Wrong.

It is.

And like I say, it's only being done in the wealthy countries and the wealthy countries.

When you take a look at the, 8 billion, I'm living on this earth, only about 5% live in the wealthy countries you know, China, India, Africa.

There are, you know, of the 8 billion people on this earth, 80%.

That's a big number for the 6 billion people they're living on less than $10 a day.

They can't subsidize themselves out of a paper bag.

But we in wealthy countries, we can do anything, and we're doing it.

And I think it's, you know, for the amount of money we're spendin trying to control the climate, we can probably do more for humanity by trying to bring them out of poverty.

And I think if you want to do some cloud seeding, you might want to do some cloud seeding in the developing countries.

They've got lots of land a lot of agricultural potential, but we're basically doing it in our backyard, not their backyard.

Despite the claims of Ronald Stein, Sant Ana Watershed Project Authority general manage Jeff Mosher says cloud seeding could be a great opportune cit to increase water reliability.

When drought plagued California water is so scarce.

So we do a tremendous amount of water recycling, groundwater recharge.

We do stormwater capture.

We have groundwater salters.

And so cloud seeding is just another option that we can add to the local water supply.

So our commission was interested in studying cloud seeding to see if it works for our region.

We've been working on water reliability for a number of years.

So we recycle 100% of our wastewater in the watershed, which is not common.

That's a tremendous achievement for us.

And so we've tapped out wastewater.

We capture a lot of stormwater, but we need for it to rain right in order to be able to capture that stormwater, we have existing stormwater capture infrastructure.

Cloud seeding, if it works for our region.

And that's why we're doing this study.

The pilot study is to see if we can get some additional rai in the storms that come through.

So what does cloud seeding give us?

It would increase the amount of stream flow from those storms by 5 to 15%.

So even squeezing out just that amount of water would be a benefit for the region.

Again, we would capture two stormwater infrastructure for recharge into our groundwater basins.

If it's, about 8% increase, that would translate to about six a water for about 16,000 households for the watershed.

And so that would be a benefit from a water supply point of view.

Cloud seeding also has other benefits in terms of adding to soil moisture in forests in our national forest around the watershed.

It also would go into our rivers to enhance habitat.

So there's other benefits besides water supply.

Despite all the positive of cloud seeding, Mosier admits there can be some concern about the environmental impacts of this process.

A process that he says his agency is studying thoroughly with the new pilot project to ensure the environment is not going to be harm.

Public agency soft conducted a Californi Environmental Quality Act study that's required for these types of projects.

The purpose of the sequel study is to look at the environmental impacts from the projec before you do it, to understand if there's needs to be any mitigation or other other changes to the project to make sure it's safe for human health and the environment.

Our secret document looked at the impacts of silver iodide, which is used as part of cloud seeding in terms of human health and the environment.

And the finding was from the secret document that based on the low levels used of silver iodide in our program, it would not be toxic for in the environment or human health.

Silver iodide, has been studied in terms of its human health effects.

It's it's considered an inert chemical.

Silver iodide has a strong bond.

It does not dissociat into silver and iodide readily has only doe that under extreme conditions.

And it once you have had a project even for a number of year or decades, the silver iodide is not found in the environmen above natural background levels.

So silver iodide occurs in nature.

The amount that we use in terms of cloud seeding isn't expected to increase that amount of background.

Silver iodide in the environment.

Thank you so much, Producer Ty Watson and our PBS team for that special report about weather modification and cloud seeding, a subject matte that is certainly controversial and has both pros and con to this complicated discussion.

And we're going to have more about this science process of controlling the weather on a future sustaining US broadcast.

As we further explore how thi can both help and harm society.

Now for more information about our program, just click on KLCS.org and then click Contact Us.

Send us your questions or comments, your story ideas so we can hear from you or contact me at DavidNazarNews on X or just go to DavidNazarNews.

That's my YouTube channel.

You can contact me there.

You know, I'll get back with you and be sure to catch our program here on PBS or catch us on the PBS app.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I'm David Nazar