Cloud seeding OK’d for north

Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2004 | 11:17 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The state Board of Examiners on Tuesday recommended an emergency allocation of $489,626 for cloud seeding this winter to draw more moisture to Northern Nevada, and Gov. Kenny Guinn said seeding should be examined for Clark County, as well.

"We need to look at everything we can do to get more water," said Guinn, the chairman of the examiners board. He asked Arlen Huggins of the Desert Research Institute to get him more information on how a similar project might work in Southern Nevada.

For more than 20 years the Legislature has set aside money for the DRI to seed the clouds in parts of western and Northern Nevada. Huggins, in charge of the project, said last year the seeding resulted in 63,000 additional acre-feet of water.

The average has been 60,000 to 80,000 additional acre-feet each winter, he said.

Guinn suggested that cloud seeding might work in the upper Colorado River basin, which supplies water to the Las Vegas area. Guinn said he wants to look at the possibility of getting more water into Lake Mead. He said he wanted information on the possibilities so he can bring it up at a future Western Governors Association convention. Other states might want to participate, he said.

In Northern Nevada, the cloud seeding is done through machines placed at key locations to induce more rain and snow during the winter months. Huggins said there was an aircraft seeding project in Southern Nevada in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Because of the weather conditions, he said it was "very difficult" to operate a cloud seeding program from the ground in Southern Nevada. "We would have to do it with airplanes," Huggins said.

There's a cloud seeding program in Idaho financed through private companies or individuals. And Utah has a state-sponsored seeding program, he said.

The request for the $489,426 in emergency funds for cloud seeding would have to be approved by the Legislative Interim Finance Committee before it could be spent. The next meeting of the Interim Finance Committee is Sept. 15.

In other action, the examiners board also approved a lease and development contract worth $16 million for Casa Grande, the pre-release center intended to help state prison inmates find jobs and adjust to living outside the prison when they are given parole.

Located on Quail Avenue near Russell at Wynn roads, the center would open in October or November 2005, according to Jackie Crawford, director of the state Department of Corrections.

This is a lease-purchase and developer Irwin Molasky has been chosen to build the center and then lease it back to the state. The state will eventually end up owning the building after 27 years.

The facility will house 200 inmates when it opens next year and an additional 200 in 2006. Inmates must be within four months of their release to society and must be willing and able to get jobs in order to be transferred to the facility, and they must return to the center at night. They also will pay room and board.

The final transaction is awaiting the approval of the state Board of Finance, and that's expected in late September.