Friday, June 10, 2022
CapitalPress.com 5
Drought raises curiosity about cloud seeding in Central Oregon
fi ts are fairly small and wouldn’t sub-
stantively change the severity of the
droughts we’ve been experiencing,
unfortunately.”
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
MADRAS, Ore. — Another year
of exceptional drought in Central
Oregon is raising questions about
whether cloud seeding can boost the
region’s water supplies by increasing
snowfall that feeds into streams and
reservoirs.
Finding out the answer, however,
could be diffi cult and expensive,
with no guarantee it would make
a meaningful diff erence, some
experts say. Others say it could
cause more precipitation to fall
from storms, bolstering the overall
water supply.
Cloud seeding is a form of
weather modifi cation in which
certain chemical compounds —
most commonly silver iodide —
are released into the atmosphere
by either aircraft or ground-based
generators. The particles provide
a “seed” for moisture in the air to
condense and fall to the ground as
rain or snow.
Mike Britton, executive manager
of the North Unit Irrigation District
in Madras, Ore., said he is famil-
iar with cloud seeding programs in
Idaho and California, and believes it
could hold promise for the parched
Deschutes and Crooked river basins.
“We’ve been in about a 10-year
dry cycle, with the last two years
being really bad,” Britton said. “It’s
driven me looking into this even
more, given where things are today.”
Conditions are dire for patrons of
the NUID. The district, which pro-
vides irrigation water for 59,000
How to do it
Idaho Power Co.
Idaho Power Co. crews maintain a cloud seeding generator in the
mountains above Garden Valley, Idaho.
acres of farmland in Jeff erson
County, set its 2022 water allotment
for 0.45 acre-feet per acre, less than
one-quarter of the normal need.
“You can’t grow a whole bunch
of stuff on less than half an acre-
foot of water, unfortunately,” Brit-
ton said.
If it can be done practically, Brit-
ton said cloud seeding might help
to deliver more snow in parts of the
Cascade Range that eventually melts
and feeds the river system, benefi t-
ting farms, wildlife and hydroelec-
tric generation.
But fi rst, a climatology study is
required to determine if the region
can actually support cloud seeding.
Such a study could cost several hun-
dred thousand dollars. Britton said
he is considering approaching state
lawmakers about funding.
“If it’s going to get done, it needs
to be done sooner rather than later,”
he said.
Study required
Larry O’Neill, Oregon state clima-
tologist, said cloud seeding has been
tried in the state before.
In the late 1970s, Portland Gen-
eral Electric experimented with cloud
seeding to enhance runoff for hydro
power. The project was dropped after
PGE estimated it increased average
snowfall by just 10%, which O’Neill
said was not statistically signifi cant.
Residents also raised concerns
about whether cloud seeding changed
the intensity of snowstorms, making
roads more dangerous.
Neither the Oregon Climate Ser-
vice nor the Oregon Climate Change
Research Institute are currently
involved in exploring cloud seeding
locally, O’Neill said.
“I don’t know of any immedi-
ate environmental conditions in the
rest of Oregon that would necessarily
preclude such eff orts here,” he said.
“However, the water supply bene-
The nonprofi t Desert Research
Institute has run a winter cloud seed-
ing program since the 1960s, and
assists with operating projects in Cal-
ifornia, Nevada and Colorado.
Frank McDonough, the program’s
director, said to develop an eff ective
cloud seeding project, they need to
study weather models to determine
when, where and how often clouds
may be ripe for seeding — that is,
whenever there are enough water
droplets in subfreezing clouds to ini-
tiate precipitation.
While McDonough said nobody
has ever seriously talked with the
institute about cloud seeding in the
Oregon Cascades, his gut instinct is
the storms are “probably seedable.”
“The real challenge would be
where the equipment could be put,
and who wants the water,” he said.
Such a project would need to be
sponsored by the state or a public
agency such as an irrigation district.
Oregon law already has a licensing
system in place for weather modifi ca-
tion through the state Department of
Agriculture. Applications can be fi led
for a $100 fee.
Idaho’s experience
In Idaho, the utility Idaho Power
began cloud seeding operations in
2003. The goal, similar to that of
PGE, was to augment runoff for
hydroelectric generation.
Since then, the program has
expanded from the Payette Basin
to the Upper Snake and Wood river
basins, using 57 ground-mounted gen-
erators and three aircraft to disperse sil-
ver iodide during the winter.
Shaun Parkinson, cloud seed-
ing and water resources leader for
Idaho Power, said results are prov-
ing to be worth the eff ort. Depending
on the watershed, he said cloud seed-
ing has increased winter precipitation
5-15%, resulting in an additional 1
million acre-feet per year of unregu-
lated runoff .
For comparison, 1 million acre-
feet of water is equal to fi ve times
the capacity of Wickiup Reservoir in
Central Oregon.
What started as a smaller pilot
project gained traction when the
state of Idaho became interested in
whether cloud seeding could help
watersheds become more drought-re-
silient by recharging aquifers and bol-
stering reservoir carryover.
Today, Parkinson said Idaho
Power, the state of Idaho and local
irrigation districts all share in the cost
of the program, which is about $3.5
million per year.
“You can wind up with a lot of
common interest in cloud seeding,”
he said. “It’s hard to fi nd people who
oppose having more water in water-
stressed environments.”
That being said, Parkinson empha-
sized that cloud seeding is not a
“drought solution,” but rather a long-
term water management tool. It does
not create new snowstorms, but may
increase the amount of snow that falls
from existing storms.
California almond harvest may
shrink despite record bearing acreage
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
Associated Press File
U.S. beef for sale in a Japanese grocery store.
Agreement on U.S. beef
exports to Japan kicks in
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
The U.S. and Japan have
signed an agreement that
will allow more U.S. beef
into the island nation with-
out triggering higher tariff s.
The agreement increases
Japan’s beef safeguard trig-
ger level under the U.S.-Ja-
pan Trade Agreement, which
went into eff ect Jan. 1, 2020.
The volume-based safe-
guard measure is meant
to protect Japan’s domes-
tic beef producers. It was
triggered in March 2021
by record-setting U.S. beef
exports to Japan, and U.S.
beef was subject to a higher
tariff than competing beef
for 30 days.
The U.S. and Japan
quickly entered into negoti-
ations, resulting in an agree-
ment in principle announced
in March of this year that
raises the trigger level.
That negotiated agree-
ment still had to be approved
by the Japanese govern-
ment, and the June 2 sign-
ing formalized implementa-
tion, said Kent Bacus, senior
director of international
trade and market access for
National Cattlemen’s Beef
Association.
The original agreement
signed in 2019 put tariff s on
U.S. beef at the same level
as competitors in the Jap-
anese market, decreasing
them from 38.5% to 25.8%
with a phased in decline.
Today, those tariff s are at
24.1% and will phase down
to 9% in 2033, he said.
“Where we were at the
disadvantage was the vol-
ume we could send. Now we
won’t be there anymore,” he
said.
The agreement includes
a new three-trigger mecha-
nism whereby all three trig-
gers must be hit for Japan
to implement the safeguard
and impose a higher tariff
of 30%. That safeguard tar-
iff will drop to 20% in 2028.
The three triggers are:
• Imports from the U.S
must exceed the original
beef safeguard trigger level
under the U.S.-Japan Trade
Agreement.
• The aggregate volume
of beef imports from the
U.S. and the original signa-
tories of the Comprehensive
and Progressive Agreement
for Trans-Pacifi c Partnership
(CPTPP) must exceed the
CPTPP beef safeguard.
• Imports from the
U.S. must exceed the total
amount of beef imports from
the U.S. during the previous
year.
“It’s going to be very
hard to hit all of those trig-
gers,” he said.
The industry wanted to
resolve the issue quickly
because it’s hard on import-
ers to know how much beef
they can purchase, he said.
“We want to make sure
Japanese importers can
get as much as possible at
a competitive price. This
makes us more predictable,
more competitive in the long
run,” he said.
There’s a clause in the
agreement that allows for
consultation if by chance
U.S. exports hit all three
triggers. But that’s highly
unlikely, he said.
In 2021, Japan was the
largest volume export mar-
ket for U.S. beef, exceed-
ing 320,000 metric tons,
and the second-largest value
market. Those exports set a
record in exports to Japan of
nearly $2.38 billion, accord-
ing to the U.S. Meat Export
Federation.
California’s 2022 almond harvest
is expected to be down 4% from last
year despite record-high bearing acre-
age, according to USDA.
Yield is forecast at 2,040 pounds
per acre, 8% below 2021’s yield of
2,210 pounds per acre.
The main culprits behind the
smaller crop, according to experts, are
frost damage and drought.
The projections come from an
initial subjective forecast USDA’s
National Agricultural Statistics Ser-
vice released in May, which estimates
this year’s crop will weigh in at 2.8
billion pounds, 4% under last year’s
2.92 billion pounds.
The subjective survey was based
on opinions from 500 randomly
selected California almond growers
from many diff erent regions and oper-
ation sizes.
On July 8, the National Agricul-
tural Statistics Service will release its
more accurate production estimate,
called the 2022 California Almond
Objective Report.
The ongoing drought is expected
to limit this year’s crop size.
“The lack of water continues to be
a top concern for almond growers,”
the National Agricultural Statistics
Service reported. “Despite record-
high bearing acreage, the 2022 crop is
University of California Coop-
erative Extension specialists Franz
Niederholzer,
Katherine
Jar-
vis-Shean, Luke Milliron and Curt
Pierce echoed concerns about the
freeze-damaged crop in a recent
publication.
“Record low temperatures on Feb.
24 severely reduced nut set and lim-
ited almond yield across thousands
of acres of orchards in the Sacra-
mento Valley,” the researchers wrote.
Some almond industry lead-
ers have also agreed with USDA’s
Almond Board of California National Agricultural Statistics Ser-
USDA’s National Agricultural Sta- vice prediction that frost and drought
tistics Service predicts a smaller will shrink this year’s harvest.
almond harvest in 2022 due to
“A lower crop estimate was not
frost damage and drought.
totally unexpected versus last year’s
2.9 billion pounds,” said Richard
not expected to be as large as the past Waycott, president and CEO of the
Almond Board of California. “Some
two years.”
Forecast bearing acreage for 2022 growers’ crops this spring were
is a record high of 1.37 million acres. impacted by frost, while all growers
The report also attributes the are managing continuing concerns
smaller expected crop to frost dam- about water availability.”
Despite the challenges, Waycott
age that happened during bloom in
said global demand for California
February.
According to USDA, the state’s almonds remains strong.
Although demand remains high,
northern almond-growing region,
which had an earlier bloom than however, almond growers and agri-
southern and central regions, was “hit cultural economists say it’s a diffi cult
hardest” by the February frost. The time for the industry with shipping
impact of the freeze also appeared logjams, increasingly thin margins
to diff er by almond variety, with and expensive supplemental water
late-blooming varieties faring better some growers have to buy on the spot
market.
than early-blooming varieties.
Save over $60 per roll over the leading tape
brand without sacrificing quality.
This high-quality drip tape
is made in Italy to the
highest standards.
199 / Roll
Ships for Free!
Sprinklers • Rain Guns • Dripline
Filters • Poly & Lay Flat Hose
Micro • Valves • Air Vents
Fertilizer Injectors
...and much more!
Fast & Free Shipping from Oregon
1-844-259-0640
www.irrigationking.com