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CapitalPress.com
October 2, 2015
Aerial cloud seeding
planned in Upper Snake
Farm Service
Agency offers
wildfire relief
programs
Idaho Department of
Water Resources has
agreed to share costs
with Idaho Power
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
IDAHO FALLS — The Idaho
Department of Water Resources and
Idaho Power are pooling funds to test
aerially based cloud seeding in the
Upper Snake River Basin.
IDWR
recently
approved
$200,000 and Idaho Power will cov-
er the remaining $300,000 to contract
for an airplane and pilot with Fargo,
N.D.,-based Weather Modification,
Inc.
Officials say it’s a pilot project
that will become permanent if all
goes as hoped. The aircraft will be
stored in either Pocatello or Idaho
Falls.
Cloud seeding seeks to draw addi-
tional moisture from storm clouds by
dispersing silver iodide particles into
the atmosphere, which bond with
moisture to form more snowflakes.
Idaho Power is committed to the sci-
ence, having submitted a request for
$2.9 million toward cloud seeding in
the 2016 budget year.
Idaho Power estimates its 2014
cloud seeding efforts — utilizing
19 remotely operated, ground-based
generators that vaporize silver iodide
— added the equivalent of 190,000
acre feet of water to the Upper Snake
Basin snowpack. By comparison, Is-
land Park Reservoir stores 135,000
acre feet.
In the Payette Basin, where Idaho
Power has operated seven ground-
based generators and a plane since
2003, the aircraft has contributed half
of the additional 14 percent in snow-
pack moisture attributed to cloud
seeding, said Shaun Parkinson, Idaho
Power’s senior water management
Courtesy of Idaho Power
Flares used in aerial cloud seeding are mounted on a plane. Idaho Power and the Idaho Department of Water Resources
are pooling their resources to contact for a plane to conduct aerial cloud seeding in the Upper Snake River Basin.
engineer. On average, cloud seeding
has bolstered the Payette water sup-
ply by 283,000 acre feet per year,
Parkinson said.
Idaho Power has also conducted
cloud seeding for the past two years
in Wood River Basin, utilizing four
ground-based generators and an air-
craft. Parkinson explained winter
cloud seeding is most effective when
temperatures range from 5 degrees to
23 degrees. Planes offer an advantage
when colder temperatures occur only
at higher elevations, Parkinson said.
If favorable conditions for aerially
seeding align in only one region, Par-
kinson said all three aircraft may be
dispatched to a storm.
“I wouldn’t rule a fourth plane
out, but we’ll see how the three inter-
act together,” Parkinson said.
He said Idaho Power also plans to
add a dozen new ground-based gen-
erators throughout its cloud seeding
territory this season. In the Upper
Snake the company hopes to even-
tually have 40 remotely operated
generators, which he expects would
average 500,000 acre feet of supple-
mental water when combined with
the plane.
Boise and Wood River irrigators
currently share a portion of the cost
of their Idaho Power cloud seeding
programs. IDWR Planning Bureau
Chief Brian Patton said the depart-
ment envisions Upper Snake irriga-
tors will share a portion of the depart-
ment’s match in the future.
“I think it’s a pretty decent return
on investment,” Patton said, “but it’s
one of those things we need to test
and see.”
Lyle Swank, watermaster over the
Upper Snake district, said his entity
already contributes up to $35,000 per
year to a separate cloud seeding pro-
gram run by Eastern Idaho counties
and High Country Resources Con-
servation and Development, utilizing
manually operated generators. Lynn
Tominaga, executive director of Ida-
ho Ground Water Appropriators, said
nine of his member districts also con-
tribute toward that program, which
collaborates with Idaho Power.
Tominaga believes the Upper Snake
airplane will go a long way toward
boosting the water supply and avert-
ing water calls.
Farmers and ranchers who lost
livestock, buildings, pasture and crops
to wildfires this summer can seek
help from the USDA’s Farm Service
Agency.
Agency Director Val Dolcini said
emergency loan and other disaster as-
sistance programs are available. Pro-
ducers should gather
their records, including
photos of damage, and
contact the nearest FSA
office, he said.
“The
important
Val Dolcini
thing for farmers and
ranchers to do is make
sure fires get put out, then contact us,”
Dolcini said in a telephone interview
with the Capital Press.
“It’s a horrific thing, a tremendous
personal trauma, to see cattle die in a
fire or a structure that maybe you built
by hand burn to ground,” he said.
The FSA’s disaster assistance pro-
grams are intended to aid producers
hit by fires, flood, drought, tornadoes,
freezing temperatures, pest infestation
and other problems. The programs
cover losses to livestock, grazing land,
fences and eligible trees, bushes and
vines, according to FSA’s website.
Aid programs also are available for
damage to honeybees and farm-raised
fish. Funding and technical assistance is
available to help farmers and ranchers
rehabilitate land damaged by natural
disasters, and for implementing water
conservation measures during drought.
Producers who bought coverage for
otherwise non-insurable crops can get
compensation for damage that prevents
planting or causes lower yields or crop
losses, according to FSA.
Wildfires in Eastern Oregon and
Washington this summer have burned
more than 1.4 million acres and de-
stroyed hundreds of homes and out-
buildings. Idaho and Northern Cali-
fornia have been hard hit as well; fires
in California’s Lake County alone de-
stroyed nearly 600 structures.
How a pink tractor can support awareness for breast cancer
October is Breast Cancer
Awareness month, a cause that
is important to us at Northwest
Farm Credit Services. More than
ten years ago, our Chief
Financial Officer Michal
Armstrong lost his battle with
breast cancer. Since then, several
other employees and customers
have battled the disease.
The Northwest FCS/AgDirect
Pink Tractor has been busy the
last two years attending
community events, customer
appreciation days, agriculture
shows and cancer races. That’s
nearly 50 events throughout our
territory in two years, raising
nearly $100,000 that we donate
to breast cancer research
organizations. Thousands of
people have seen the tractor at
an event, taken a picture with it
or have commented on our
stewardship mission.
Media Relations Coordinator
Jennifer Rohrer says the best
moments are when people call
and thank Northwest FCS for
excited to see something that
showcased agriculture and their
new mission in life - beating
cancer. Come to find out, the
nurse had purchased her t-shirt
at one of our outreach events in
Spokane.”
Rohrer goes on to say, “It’s
amazing how many people have
Northwest FCS employees in Twin Falls
reached out to us about the Pink
participated in the “Tough Enough to Wear
Tractor. I received the best e-
Pink” event at the local rodeo. The Pink Tractor
traveled to more than 50 industry, cancer
mail from a woman in the
awareness and community events this year in
United Kingdom. She had
Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.
completed an internet search for
their mission. “I got a call from a
‘breast cancer awareness t-shirt’
farmer in Lewiston who asked
and our shirt popped up. She
me about the Pink Tractor,”
wanted shirts for her entire
Rohrer said. “He later explained
family to wear at a UK breast
his wife had been diagnosed
cancer awareness run.”
with breast cancer and they had
just arrived in Spokane to begin These stories and many more
make us so proud to bring
her treatment.”
awareness, support, fundraising
“They were dealing with all of
dollars, and a little fun to the
the emotions of this new
communities in which we live
journey and out walked their
and work.
nurse, in a Pink Tractor
t-shirt,” she said.
Jennifer Rohrer is the Media
Relations Coordinator at
“They didn’t know anything
Northwest FCS
about our tractor, but were
Call Classifieds for Sponsorship Information:
800-882-6789
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