It stands to reason that Oregon should take a close look at cloud seeding. Much of Oregon has been locked in drought for four years. The prospect of providing even a little relief is well worth the effort.

We already know that cloud seeding works in the Cascade Range. In the 1970s, Portland General Electric seeded clouds in hopes of producing more runoff to generate electricity. The utility found the snowpack was 10% larger but decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

Fast forward to 2023. The climate is rapidly changing, parts of Oregon are in a multi-year drought and the technology used for seeding clouds has improved in the past half-century.

Now would seem to be the perfect time to try cloud seeding again.

It should be noted that cloud seeding works only under the right circumstances. The temperature needs to be below 23 degrees, the clouds need to have plenty of supercooled water and the wind needs to be blowing toward the mountains.

The cloud seeding equipment — either on the ground or mounted on an airplane — releases silver oxide that helps the water to crystalize and fall as snow.

Idaho, which has had a successful cloud seeding program for 20 years, has boosted the snowpack in four river basins by 10% to 12%. That in turn boosted the state’s river flows by 1.24 million acre-feet. In Oregon, that would be the equivalent of three additional Detroit Lakes.

It costs Idaho $3.22 for each acre-foot of water the cloud seeding generates — a bargain by any measure.

This is not smoke and mirrors. Idaho’s experience with cloud seeding has been verified by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. In addition to generating more mountain snowpack, other new technology is in the works that could boost rainfall by 25% to 30%.

We’re not atmospheric scientists, but it has been shown that, under the right circumstances, cloud seeding works.

It would be appropriate for researchers to give this technology a close look and, if possible, put it work for the people of Oregon.

They would be foolish not to.

Oregon Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale, last month submitted a bill that could open up opportunities for cloud seeding in Oregon.

Senate Bill 58 states that a cloud seeding program may benefit basins throughout the state and it would give the Water Resources Department the tools it needs to implement seeding programs.

Making clouds produce more rain and snow may sound like science fiction, but the technology has been around for decades. Cloud seeding is already used in several states. Beyond the U.S., more than 50 countries have cloud seeding operations, including Australia, India, China and Israel.

In Central Oregon, cloud seeding can potentially be used to boost snowpack, increasing water reserves for agriculture, wildlife, and recreation.

Siera Watson, chief of staff for Findley, said the bill has been referred to the Natural Resources Committee, but a meeting has yet to be been scheduled.

The science behind cloud seeding involves introducing tiny ice nuclei into certain types of subfreezing clouds. The nuclei provide a base for snowflakes to form around them. It’s basically giving Mother Nature a helping hand.

There are two main methods of seeding clouds: one uses dry ice (carbon dioxide) and the other uses silver iodide. Dry ice is not toxic, and silver iodide is a salt that has not been found to be harmful to humans or the environment in the small amounts used in cloud seeding operations.

Industrial emissions of silver iodide into the atmosphere are usually far larger than the amount released during cloud seeding, said Larry O’Neill, an associate professor at Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science.

“Ecological and human health impact studies have not found any adverse impacts in regions subjected to cloud seeding,” said O’Neill. “As far as is known, cloud seeding appears to be safe.”

Oregon has some history of cloud seeding. Portland General Electric attempted to artificially produce precipitation in the mid-1970s as a way to increase runoff to help generate hydroelectric power but abandoned the program after one winter.

“It ended that program in part because their estimates showed only a possible 10% increase in snowpack, which was not statistically significant, and because of concerns that seeding operations changed the intensity of snowfall that made roads more dangerous,” said O’Neill.

Southern Oregon had a cloud seeding operation in the 1950s that was aimed at reducing summer hail storms, which damaged orchards. That operation also ended after protests from local crop producers who claimed that cloud seeding somehow prevented rainfall, O’Neill said.

Modern-day cloud seeding is becoming more widely accepted and is widely used in neighboring Idaho. The Idaho Collaborative Seeding Program says it creates 1.2 million acre-feet of water annually from its operations. The $4 million project operates 57 remote ground generators and three aircraft. The estimated cost of the water is $3.22 per acre-foot.

But O’Neill remains skeptical about how much cloud seeding would impact water availability in Oregon.

“Many studies dispute whether cloud seeding has any measurable impact on precipitation,” said O’Neill. “It is safe to say that even if cloud seeding does enhance precipitation, it is by an amount that would have little influence on the water supply here.”

O’Neill adds that the programs can still divide communities. Some say seeding clouds can create dangerous amounts of rainfall. There are also concerns that it can inhibit rain that might fall elsewhere. “There will always be controversy surrounding any weather modification attempt, which may not be worth the possible small benefits,” said O’Neill.

Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang said he is open to exploring the option of cloud seeding, but he said Central Oregon should first focus its attention on improving the efficiency of agricultural water use, including canal piping.

“There are tens of thousands of acre-feet of water available in the basin through irrigation modernization if we are willing to do the work and invest the resources,” Chang said in an email. “I’d like to see us focusing on supply reliability strategies with certain outcomes.”

Authorities caution that a cloud seeding-program can take time to develop. Mike Britton, executive manager of North Unit Irrigation District, says it will take three to five years to start “assuming investigations warrant the effort.”

“It could be a potential opportunity to create more water for the state, but it’s way down the road, if at all,” said Britton.

Still, Britton thinks a study is warranted. He has heard skeptics dismiss the science but four years into a drought that is ravaging farming communities he says any option should be on the table.

“When I started talking about cloud seeding people thought I was crazy — smoke and mirrors stuff,” said Britton. “But we’d be remiss given our current state of water supply statewide if we didn’t at least investigate it.”