Regulating cloud seeding in Canada is a must under the federal Weather Modification Act ñ but how successful the practice is, or what effect it has on the environment, isn't actively watched by the government, said Stewart Cober, who conducts cloud physics research for the Meteorological Service of Canada, part of Environment Canada.The Act requires any company or organization that undertakes whether modification to provide notice of intent to Environment Canada.ìIn roughly May they send a letter to Environment Canada and it ends up in my filing cabinet,î said Cober. He said information they provide includes specific weather modification activities they undertook such as how many flights there were, how many times silver iodide was injected, and the latitude, longitude and altitude location of where it was done.ìThere are no reports on whether they are successful or not or whether they did verification or not. That's not required,î he said.Concerns have been cropping up from a handful of residents who want to know why companies, such as Weather Modification Inc., funded by ASWMS, can carry out cloud-seeding operations every year. They say a yellow residue can be seen on cars and on the ground after cloud-seeding planes go by and wonder what effect the iodide is having on the environment.Terry Krauss, with ASWMS, said the reason there aren't any federal controls in place is because the government thinks it's harmless.ìIt's a waste of money to have controls and to demand an environmental impact statement.îHe said cloud-seeding operations are also done in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, California, Nevada, Kansas Texas, Colorado and North Dakota.ìIf it was bad for the environment surely they wouldn't be doing it in California for 50 years. California is the heart of litigation and suing and environmental lawyers.îThe World Meteorological Organization, made up of 189 member states and territories including Canada, is a specialized agency of the United Nations that monitors the state and behaviour of the Earth's atmosphere.In its statement on weather modification, it said studies have shown no significant impact of silver iodide used in weather modification operations either on human health or the environment. ìUnintended consequences of cloud seeding, such as downwind effects and environmental and ecological impacts, have not been demonstrated but cannot be ruled out.îThe organization supports research projects but said scientific evidence to date is still inconclusive and effectiveness remains controversial.The Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the non-profit scientific organization representing Canadian atmospheric and oceanic scientists and professions, also supports weather modification but agrees more work needs to be done.However, some Gazette readers responding to recent articles on hailseeding have expressed abiding concerns over the practice.Cheryl Heddema, who lives two miles north and two miles east of the Bergen store, emailed a photograph of a hailstone ìthe size of a fast ballî that fell on her property July 6.ìMakes me wonder if cloud seeding had anything to do with it,î Heddema wrote.
