Cloud-Seeding Put Back on Agenda
Supervisor Pete Schabarum plans to ask the Board of Supervisors today to consider reviving cloud-seeding in Los Angeles County, more than a decade since the rainmaking program was discontinued after complaints that it caused devastating mudslides in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
“I believe it is essential that every feasible measure to increase our precious water supplies must be thoroughly examined,” Schabarum said.
Water officials do not see an immediate danger of a water shortage. But Jay Malinowski, spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said: “If we have a dry winter, there could be serious problems next summer.”
Cloud-seeding was carried out over the San Gabriel Mountains throughout the 1960s and most of the ‘70s, but the county halted the program in 1978 after numerous lawsuits were filed, claiming that the seeding intensified a major storm that killed 11 people and caused $43 million in property damage from mudslides.
The county prevailed in each of the damage suits.
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