Today, Explained - Make it rain

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

The Colorado River is disappearing and the government is now spending millions on one wild idea to ease the pain: seeding clouds to make it rain. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey and Michael Raphael, and hosted by Sean Rameswarem. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California, the Colorado River gives fresh water to people across seven states. But drought, climate change, and a growing population has shrunk the river's water flow to its lowest levels ever. The situation on the Colorado River is critical. Despite a rainy and snowy winter out west, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the reservoirs that provide water for 40 million Americans, are at record low levels due to the ongoing mega drought. The Colorado River is in one of the worst dry spells that humans have ever witnessed, and that's driven water levels in the river and in the major reservoirs to the lowest levels we've seen on record. There are a lot of ideas how to fix it. One of them is especially wild.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca Today, today it rains. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. Today, today it rained. Umair Irfan, science reporter at Vox.com. Why are things so bad on the Colorado River? It's a combination of both natural and human effects. This is a region that's dry and it goes through periods of extremely dry spells.

We've seen in the historical record that there have been decades-long droughts before, but humans are doing a lot of things to make things worse. One, humans are warming up the planet and increasing the severity and extent of some of these droughts that we are likely to see in the coming years. But more approximately, basically, people are drawing on water from the river. And 40 million Americans, about one in eight people, draw on water from this river for food, for agriculture, for residential drinking, for recreation. It's an important lifeline for a huge part of the country. And one of the original sins of the Colorado River is that the managers started allocating more water than there actually was there. They essentially assumed that there was going to be more water and they started divvying it up that way. And they realized that actually that amount of water was never there to

begin with. And so there was always going to be a crunch at some point when the dry spells kicked back in. What's on the table for saving what's left of the Colorado River right now? Right now, there's a lot of people are throwing a lot of ideas against the wall. The big thing is that one, that there just needs to be cuts. Essentially, the amount of water that the people are using has to go down. That's going to require addressing the demand. Precisely how to divide up those cuts, that's a huge contentious issue. And then recently, the federal government, the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Reclamation, put out a report basically telling these states, we're going

to step in if you guys can't get your act together. And here are the scenarios we're thinking about. One of them is basically a do-nothing scenario, just showing what would happen if they did nothing and what would happen to water levels and allocations if everything continued as usual. Through this no-action alternative, we will see the most impacts to the system. One was a proportionate system where basically everyone would cut water relative to how much they're currently using based on existing water rights. Action Alternative 1 looks at the additional lower Colorado River Basin shortages based on the concept of priority. And the final version, the one that's the most controversial, is one where cuts are distributed equally among the states. Action Alternative 2 analyzes the additional reductions that are distributed in the same percentage across the lower basin water users in shortage condition. Why so controversial?

Well, the water on the Colorado River is divided in this complicated seniority system. But in short, what it means is that the people who got there first have the most right to the water. And that is essentially farmers in Arizona and in the Imperial Valley in California. The thing is, they're downstream relatively on the river. They're and in the Imperial Valley in California. The thing is, they're downstream relatively on the river. They're basically in the lower basin. The upper basin includes parts of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. There's also the lower basin. That includes other parts of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, as well as parts of Nevada and California. So the states that are in the upper basin have to actually let water go past in order for them to have that water. And because they have that seniority,

they're the priority. They're the last in line to making cuts. They're the first in line for getting any extra water. That's the law of the river that's been governing how water has been used for more than a century in that area. The federal government's approach threatens to overturn that. And for some people, that could be a huge win. For the states that are further upstream on the river, that would actually be something that would benefit them. But for the large farmers downstream who have been counting on this disproportionate allocation of water, this would be a very big cutback for them. And how do those downstream states feel right now? So the states

were supposed to come up with an agreement for cutting water allocation and water use from the river. Six of the seven states did. But the seventh, California, refused to sign on, saying the cuts unfairly targeted the Golden State. The cuts are left disproportionately to California, which is frankly not fair in this situation. And so there is a fight among the states now for who is most responsible for the water and who's using it most judiciously. Some states are saying that you're using that water for luxury items like watering lawns and golf courses. California says that we're using it to grow food and food is super important and therefore we deserve this water. Other people are saying you're living in communities that really shouldn't have been there. So there's like a lot of finger pointing

and blame to go around. But the short of it is that because there are so many different stakeholders and because this is almost a zero sum game here, nobody wants to be the first in line to give up what they think that they're entitled to. What else is on the table other than, you know, let's use less water, let's reallocate who gets this water first, that kind of thing? Well, there are a number of technical solutions to this. First of all, agriculture is the largest water user

on the Colorado River, and it's mainly growing crops to feed cattle. So this is like alfalfa. So essentially we're using the water to grow food for another animal that we in turn eat. And a lot of people say that that's a really inefficient way of doing things, that we shouldn't be growing water-hungry crops, water-thirsty crops in one of the driest regions of the country. So one solution is— We should just cut the middleman out and eat the alfalfa.

We could be doing that, yeah. One proposal is simply that people should eat less meat, particularly consuming less dairy and consuming less beef. These are some of the water hungriest consumer food products that we have in this country. And certainly we should be reducing our dependence on the regions that are most stressed by water. So things like growing less water intensive crops, part of it could also be paying farmers not to grow crops during parts of the year, letting their fields go fallow. And that way they can stay in business without having to use water or have to grow crops during parts of the year, letting their fields go fallow. And that way they can stay in business without having to use water or have to grow anything. And that will help save water for other crops

and other uses as well. Roughly 90% of all winter leafy greens in the US are grown here in Yuma Valley. It's fertile land and nearly year around sunshine cultivated this billion dollar industry. But some farmers say as they look towards the future, the writing is on the wall. Their biggest worry? Water cuts. There are other techniques, though, to reduce water demands on the river from things like power plants. Producing energy is a

huge water consumer, not just the hydroelectric dams, but thermal power plants, coal plants, gas plants. They actually use water for cooling and for running their steam turbines. And there are new technologies being developed that require a lot less of that water for cooling. And that can help the plants run with less water and reduce the overall demand on the river. And then for the communities that live in the Colorado River Basin, they're also learning how to go further with less. In fact, over the past decade, there's been a decoupling between population growth and water consumption. People have learned to effectively reduce the amount of water they need to maintain their existing

lifestyle. So things like, you know, rather than growing green grass lawns, but doing zero-scaping with drought-tolerant plants or rocks even, that means that people need less water to water their plants in their yards using more water-efficient appliances, low-flow toilets and shower heads and faucets. All these other things to reduce overall water consumption from individuals are a big part of the solution here as well. Which sounds really nice,

but having recently visited Southern California, it's obvious that not nearly enough people are doing that to make enough of a difference. Right. Individual actions do matter, but not as much as the things that the largest users are doing. And so there are some proposals to do even more drastic things. Like some experts, including the former head of the Bureau of Reclamation, say that we should get rid of some of the dams on the river completely, including the Glen Canyon Dam. The federal government is worried Lake Mead and Lake Powell could hit what's known as Deadpool when water no longer flows under the massive Glen Canyon and Hoover dams, cutting off Colorado River water to western cities, including Las Vegas,

Phoenix and Los Angeles, as well as millions of acres of farmland. What's the timeline here, Amir? Like, how long does the Southwest have before it's in a crisis as a result of the evaporation, the destruction of this water source? I mean, some people would argue that it's already starting to happen, that we're already locked into one of the worst possible outcomes here, where basically this bickering is delaying the drastic action that really needs to happen. Well, we turn to Rio Verde, Arizona. It recently went from a rich, budding community to having its water cut off this week. That's not a good thing in the desert. It's a suburb of Scottsdale, Arizona. And the city basically just said that we're not going to sell you water to this suburb. And the residents had to basically contract with people to truck in water and the residents had to eat off of paper plates and forego showers and washing their dishes. And so we've already seen, you know, some of the more drastic outcomes starting to happen here. And as water levels continue to decline, as populations continue to grow, those stresses will grow and more people will start to experience those effects as well. This is an area, even though it's dry, it's been habited for thousands of years. Native Americans have called this region

home for a very long time, and they've learned to live with the changes in water flows. So it is definitely survivable, but we've come into this area with expectations of things like air conditioning, lawns, and in these huge houses that require a ton of energy as the planet's temperature is heating up. And so air conditioning demands are going up, lighting demands and all that stuff. And so we're making it difficult to live for ourselves while raising our expectations of what we want. And that's creating a mismatch with the resources that we have, particularly water. That's a huge limitation. And we need to start living within our means as we deal with these constraints. Okay. So we've got reducing water usage.

We've got shifting some water around. What about just finding more water, which is sort of the name of the game here, right? That is something that's happening to an unlimited extent. You know, there are some cities that have groundwater reserves. There are some cities that have other rivers that they can draw on and use that to manage their water needs. You know, Phoenix, Arizona is already doing that. But those groundwater reserves are also going to get depleted if there's less water in the basin overall.

And, you know, there are some individuals, particularly farmers, who are looking at things as far-fetched as even engineering the weather. Come again? There are some farmers who are looking at generating their own rainfall using a technique called cloud seeding. Ooh la la. You save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month.

And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, r-a-m-p.com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC, terms and conditions apply. Today Explained, we are back. Before we left, Umair Irfan from Vox told us that we could maybe make it rain to save the Colorado River using a process called cloud seeding. So we reached out to James Dineen, an environment reporter at New Scientist, to find out more about that idea. James, tell us what is cloud seeding? Cloud seeding is a method of weather modification that involves releasing particles of silver iodide or

other types of aerosols into clouds to increase rain or snowfall. Spraying tiny crystals called silver iodide into a snowstorm can provide more particles for snowflakes to form around. Silver iodide can also produce snowflakes at warmer temperatures than it takes for water crystals to create snow. And basically larger droplets form around those particles among the trillions of super cold droplets that are too small to fall. And that can spark a chain reaction leading to rain. And there's lots of ways you can get the particles into clouds. You can fire them up into clouds with rockets.

Rockets! Rockets, yes. Or you can spray them particles into clouds. You can fire them up into clouds with rockets. Rockets! Rockets, yes. Or you can spray them off of flares. Or even like they do in China, using artillery guns to blast artillery shells into clouds and then the stuff sprays in there. Wow. In China, they're waging war on the weather.

A drought so severe, they're firing rockets into the sky to make it rain. But probably the way it's mostly done is less dramatic. There are these ground-based stations where you can burn silver iodide in acetone, and then the smoke rises up into the clouds. That's how you get it there. So there's rockets, flares, and then just burning stuff on the ground and having it float up into the clouds? Yeah. And it sounds like this isn't just a far-flung idea to help save the Colorado River.

You mentioned China. This is happening, what, around the world? Yeah. So cloud seeding has a long and somewhat checkered history. Cloud seeding got its start because of research on ice accreting on airplane wings during World War II. Huh. That's a problem for planes. Planes can't fly when they get too much ice.

And some researchers at General Electric were messing around with stuff, and they threw some dry ice into some super-cooled water and saw that it created ice crystals. And they said, whoa, maybe we could do that in actual clouds. In 1946, two scientists in the United States discovered that by dropping pieces of dry ice from an aircraft into a cloud, they produced a snowstorm. And that's the beginning of cloud seeding. And from there, it was adopted in a lot of places,

like a lot of small-scale, like ranchers, farmers, irrigation districts across the West. Western U.S. started trying to seed clouds. In Colorado, for example, a lot of ski resorts have funded cloud seeding efforts for a long time to increase the amount of snow they got. And it has been adopted, too to in other parts of the world. The United Arab Emirates has also pretty recently expanded their cloud seeding efforts and also research on it. The UAE has been leading the effort to seed clouds and increase precipitation. The country is located in one of the hottest and driest regions on earth, where rainfall remains at less than 100 millimeters

or 3.9 inches a year on average. So does it do enough? Does it really work enough to make a difference? Yeah. So when I said it has a checkered history, this is exactly why. You know, I mean, it's an ancient dream of humanity to make it rain, right? You know, we need rain to do everything. I make it rain in this world. I make it snow in this world. Indeed, yeah. Sorry, what was the question? Oh, this just doesn't work.

Tell me about the checkered history. Does it actually work? It would be really great if it does work. People have really tried it for a long time, but it was really difficult to prove whether or not it worked for a few reasons. For a long time, there was like a limited understanding of the physics of clouds. And also, it's really difficult to run well-controlled experiments in nature. How do you tell if the seeding you're doing caused this cloud to rain or didn't cause it to rain?

So for a long time, there was a very contentious debate around whether cloud seeding works or not. It's still going, except there is some more recent research that has shown really conclusively that at least in some contexts, cloud seeding can increase precipitation. Specifically, there was this experiment in Idaho done by researchers where they used radar to show that they were able to seed a cloud and cause it to snow. So it works. But the really big remaining question around cloud seeding is not does it work, but it's how much water can it produce? So how well does it work? That's still an open question. Okay. And it sounds like they could use some answers in the American West where this is being seriously considered as a solution to the drought they're seeing? It's definitely not being considered as like the solution. It's maybe a small part of the solution. So states in the West have been cloud seeding for a long time, but those programs have recently

expanded like in the past several years. A number of states have started putting more money into it. There was a recent announcement that the federal government was providing this $2.4 million grant to Nevada to expand their cloud seeding program. The federal government getting involved in that way is kind of a new thing. Well, if there's millions of dollars of state and federal funding going towards this idea, is there accountability? Do they have to produce water or is it sort of, I don't know, pie in the sky?

So there are lots of cloud seeding companies that get the money to make it rain. And they are required to report annually to the state how much water they thought they produced from their efforts. But operators of these companies that I've spoken with admit that those methods to show additional water are pretty crude and should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, in a context in which people are desperate for water, water is so valuable. Any increase at all in water supply is probably worth it, especially something like cloud seeding, which is relatively inexpensive. So why not give it a shot?

Yeah, why not give it a shot? And it's clear that a lot of states and even smaller scale projects like individual ranchers or small groups of farmers in a particular irrigation district are willing to take that risk. But are there any downsides to cloud seeding? If you make it rain in Utah using, you know, these methods, is it not going to rain in Nevada because those clouds were used and seeded in Salt Lake City or something like that?

Well, so there are three major things that often come up with cloud seeding. One is what you just said. Are you robbing Peter to pay Paul? And my understanding is that that's not really a concern for a few reasons. One is cloud seeding works at a pretty local level. You know, you're seeding one cloud, not like a whole region. And you're also not taking all of the water from a cloud. It's a marginal increase

in precipitation that would happen like 10%, 15% at most. And because of that, no, you're not going to take all the water from a cloud that would have made it to Salt Lake City by seeding it. Another concern that comes up a lot is contamination from silver iodide, which can be toxic in high concentrations. From researchers I've spoken with, they say comparisons between places where there was seeding and where there wasn't seeding have shown that there's not really more silver iodide in the general environment in places where there was seeding than places there weren't. And for it to be toxic, it has to really rise to like really high concentrations that you're unlikely to see. But there has been some research that also contradicts that. And so it's definitely a point of contention.

And the last one is sort of a more philosophical question about weather modification in general, controlling the weather. Should we be involved in trying to make it rain? Should we be involved in trying to modify the weather? And that's a legitimate point to make. The playing God question. The playing God question. Yes. Last year, there were some cloud seeding proposals in New Mexico that got scrubbed, partly because of opposition to this and also because the cloud seeding operators failed to consult with tribal governments before seeding in ways that would have affected them.

So there are those political issues too. Are there people who are scared of this technology? Yes, definitely. There is this sort of like chemtrail vein of opposition. What's a conspiracy theory that you a thousand percent believe in? Chemtrails. Thought it was bullshit it's not it's real it's called cloud seeding this is what your government is doing we're talking about how

governments are funding these weather modification projects there is a way that it can turn something like the weather into this political question but either, the government isn't scared off by the chemtrail conspiracy theorists out there. They are spending at least a few million dollars on this federally and even more at the state level. Is the situation with the Colorado River right now one of the sort of biggest stages in the world to see how much cloud seeding can solve a drought? Yeah, I think it's fair to say that this is an exciting time for cloud seeding, both because there's this urgent need for water in the West, and also because there is this new sophisticated research that can help understand these questions that have plagued cloud seeding

efforts since their inception in the 1940s. But cloud seeding should definitely not be seen as a panacea to the water crisis in the West or anywhere else. That said, it's a pretty cheap method of increasing water supply, and there's not really another way to increase water supply, you know? Water comes from the sky and that's it. Water comes in the sky. Water comes in the sky. Water comes in the sky. Water comes in the sky.

Water comes in the sky. James Deneen, new scientist. Earlier we heard from Umair Irfan at Vox. He's kind of our old scientist. Avishai Artsy made it rain. With the production on this episode, we were edited by Amina Alsadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and mixed by Paul Robert Mounsey and Michael Rayfield. I'm Sean Ramos-Firm. This is Today Explained. Happy

early Earth Day. Do the planet of solid. Ooh la la!