WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Isaiah Menning: America Needs to Make It Rain — Like Utah Is Doing

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Cloud seeding could be the water solution the West desperately needs. So why are some states trying to ban it?Isaiah Menning, External Affairs Manager at the American Conservation Coalition and Young Voices Contributor, makes a case for investing in cloud seeding innovation. With Utah leading the charge and China rapidly scaling its own weather modification efforts, Menning argues the U.S. must expand this $3/acre-foot water solution before environmental skepticism costs us agricultural resilience, hydropower capacity, and global competitiveness.Click HERE to read the full articleFrom 05/13/25.

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Nicole Segaratow, and with me today is Isaiah Menning, External Affairs Director at the American Conservation Coalition and Young Voices contributor. Hi, Isaiah. Hi, Nicole. Thanks so much for having me. Of course. So we're talking about your article that you wrote on cloud seeding in Utah and kind of about the drought and all of that. So to start us off, what is cloud seeding and why is it so important? Great question.

So cloud seeding is the process where you use silver iodide or another kind of precipitants to actually enhance existing storm systems, snow or rain. And so essentially, the goal of cloud seeding is to increase the amount of snowpack or rainfall that you get with any existing storm system, particularly in a place where you need more water. And so the state of Utah has been doing this for about 50 years. It's a proven technology that's been being used. for a very long time, and it's a way to essentially enhance the existing process of snowfall

and rainfall in a good way to increase the amount of snow that we get on the landscape, an amount of ultimately water that's available. How is this precipitant added to the already existing storms? Yeah, so great question. It's usually added via on-the-ground generators. And so in the state of Utah, where I'm from, where cloud seeding is, has been used for over 50 years and where it's been really helpful and increasing the amount of snowfall that we have in this state, sometimes by 5 to 15% for any snow system.

What happens is you have generators that are on the ground. They target existing cloud systems to put silver iodide, which is usually the precipitant that's used, to essentially prime that system in order so that morphs snowfalls on the mountains in Utah. And so what it's doing is actually is inspired by the existing. natural process of snowfall and rainfall, where you typically have dust or some other kind of natural precipitant that's in a system, goes into a cloud, and then it makes it starts to snow. So this is essentially the same process that you're doing, just with a slightly different precipitant,

but a totally safe one, to increase the amount of snowfall that you're getting. And what that means is that you have more water that's available for people in places like Utah, and you have more water that's also in the landscape for wildlife. life. And this is really critical in a place like Utah where the drought is really, really bad. Where I'm from in Salt Lake City, we're right adjacent to the Great Salt Lake. And the Great Salt Lake is a massive lake that is essentially in the middle of this large basin. And at the bottom of the lake, there's toxic, there are toxic chemicals that if it's not covered with water, could go into the city and really cause massive environmental damage. And we've actually seen this with other

lakes in the West, like the Owens Lake, is if these saline lakes don't stay full, then you can like devastate an entire community. And so my city, my hometown is like right next to this. And what Utah's been able to do is we've been able to stave off some of the challenges that we'd have with our shrinking lake with cloud seeding by simply increasing the amount of water that's in the system while also allowing other kinds of water uses to continue like agriculture and AI use. And so that's why this is really important for places like Utah. Where are these cloud seeding generators? Are they closer to the mountains where the storms originate or are they more so in the valley?

Yeah. So my understanding is that they tend to be in the mountains where you have the clouds that I kind of come up to the mountains and then they go into the system. A really exciting way and new innovation that's being used for this is using actually drones to seed the clouds where you can be really very targeted and you go up into the cloud system directly to apply. the silver iodide or other kind of precipitant. And that allows you to be much more targeted with the system. So, for instance, now this, I don't think this is in use right now, but you could conceive of down the line using cloud seeding to preemptively stop wildfires, another major challenge in the West, where you could put a drone into an existing storm

system, increase the amount of rain or snow that falls, and then, you know, increase the resilience of that landscape to wildfire. Now, it might already be doing that by just simply increasing snowpack. in the state of Utah, and that just increases the water on the landscape, and that makes it more resilient to things like wildfires. But to answer your original question, yeah, generally the generators are on the mountain, but there are other ways to do it in really precise ways with things like drones. So this sounds extremely targeted. So would you say this is by a storm-by-storm basis, or are there like certain times of the year where these generators are used more, such as the summer,

when it starts to dry out? Great question. So currently in Utah, to the best of my knowledge, we're doing it only during the wintertime to increase snowfall. And so the technology is really very proven for increasing snowfall. And so usually what the state of Utah has been doing is been very successful in increasing our snowfall due to cloud seeding by again, around 5 to 15% in the storm system. And the state of Utah, I believe that they assess the storm system to see.

see if it's good to seed. And then we'll go ahead either directly or with their contractors to do cloud seeding on that system. And so what that does, though, is that it actually allows us to have more water in the summertime. So a place like Utah works where we actually have very little groundwater that we use, we almost entirely depend on snowpack, is that that snowpack that melts over the summer essentially determines how much water is available during the summer and the fall months. And so increasing the amount of snow that's in the mountains during the winter is really important so that we can use that water later in the summertime.

So while there isn't existing systems to increase wet rainfall during the summer in Utah, you can increase the snow and then use that water later as it melts. Yeah, that sounds super helpful, especially like, as you mentioned, as the snow melts. It's more gradual that you're receiving this water as opposed to all at once. And one of the things you mentioned in your article was that this method of, I guess, getting more rainwater is a lot more affordable than other types of water reclamation, whether it's desalinization or, you know, reusing water. Why is it so much more affordable? Yeah, that's a great question. Things like desalination and water reclamation require large amounts of energy inputs. It takes a lot of energy to do the process. to turn ocean water into freshwater, for instance, or to turn gray water or sewer water into usable fresh water. And it's actually, it turns out that it's just a lot cheaper to you to directly increase the amount of snow or rain that's on the landscape using cloud seeding because the inputs

are relatively cheap for the amount of water that they create. So inputs include the silver iodide, the drones, the generators, and then of course the people who are operating them. And so it does require this huge amount of energy that things like desalination requires. And so in that sense, it's literally orders of magnitude cheaper than the other alternatives. Based on the publicly available data, Utah has been able to increase the amount of water on the landscape for only $3 per acre foot of water. And for desalination, that costs between $800 and $1,400 per acre foot. So we're talking multiple hundred times more for desalination.

It's not to say that desalination doesn't have a place in certain geographies next to the ocean or other places, it might be part of the solution. But for a place like Utah that depends on snowfall, cloud seeding is certainly a major part of the solution, and that's why the state of Utah has been able to make serious investments in it and why other states are actually looking to do the same thing. Yeah, so in your article you mentioned that China is really advanced in their cloud seeding technology in that they use it pretty regularly over there. Was China the first place to do this,

or was this invented somewhere else in the world? Great question. Cloudsini is a distinctly American technology that was invented here in the middle of the 20th century, I believe in New York State. And so, much like many other kinds of American innovations, we tend to innovate the technology that's extremely helpful. And then China tends to take it and build a lot of it

and use it in really effective ways. And of course, I think it's in the American interest to use the technology that we've invented in a way that is beneficial for our national interests. And so China has made ambitions to actually use cloud seeding to meet about 10% of their total national water consumption, which is just a huge, huge figure. The Chinese government reports that they've been able to actually decrease hail damage to crops by about 70% using cloud seeding technologies. And so I think that it's imperative that the U.S. keeps up with

China for cloud seeding, not only just to have the edge in this technology, but also to meet our national security needs. Water is so critical for so many things. It's really critical for AI infrastructure. You usually need a lot of water to keep systems cool in AI. It's also really critical for agriculture and keeping an edge on our agricultural production here in the United States. And then, of course, it's really crucial for just everyday American life, right? If we can increase the amount of water that's available, then we can use it for other types of uses, things like increasing the amount of forest that's available for livestock, decreasing the environmental impact of really wonderful things like golf courses and turf and other kinds of water uses. And so it's really crucial for national security as well with water being such a critical resource. And so the more that we can increase the amount of water that falls on American land, the better.

China understands this. And I think that we should take that lesson and apply that to policy in the United States. There's an opportunity, I think, for the national government to actually look at the system, see the huge effects and impacts that it's been able to have in Utah, and ask how we can innovatively use cloud seeding to increase our water supplies strategically, especially in the Western United States, but also other places, and increase our ability to have. have water and to simply pursue our water abundance goals that will support our other national security imperatives. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Nicole Segaratow talking to Isaiah Menning. And we're going to get back to talking about cloud seeding. I think it's really

shocking that this technology was developed in the United States and that more states here haven't actually chosen to implement it. I would imagine that the Great Salt Lake has replenished more because of this and that other states would look at the success Utah has had and may be more inclined to participate in it. What are some concerns that states have as to why they may not be doing this? Sure. So I think oftentimes the concerns around cloud seating are based in misconceptions about the technology. So currently, you have a number of states in Florida is one of them that are entertaining bills that would ban cloud seating in the state. And oftentimes what the genesis of this is and what the sponsors of the bill tend to say is that they conflate cloud seeding with other kinds of

weather interventions like geoengineering, for instance. So geoengineering is a technology that's completely separate from cloud seeding, but the basic idea with that is that you put some kind of material in the atmosphere like sulfur dioxide to decrease the global temperatures. It has effects like around the world. Closity is completely different. It has very local effects, meaning that it's very, very easy to actually not use it when you don't want to

and to use it where you do to have it be completely targeted. And it's unlike geoengineering and the concerns that some people have around that. And so in this Florida bill, for instance, it conflates both of those technologies and bans both of them, unfortunately. And I think that if American citizens, States go down that path, that'll set a very dangerous and anti-technology precedent that we don't

want to go down. If you think about a technology like nuclear energy, this is an extremely dense form of energy that is critical for something like energy abundance. What initially took nuclear energy down was people who had honestly baseless concerns with nuclear technology. Nuclear is the safest form of energy available. And what you had was the environmental movement that came out against nuclear and it was regulated almost out of existence as far as our ability to build new nuclear plants.

I think it would be a tragedy to do the same thing for cloud seeding and to let China get the lead on that technology. And we're seeing the same thing with nuclear, where China's building out huge amounts of nuclear. And so I think that it's important to look at the conversation in places like Florida and other states and say, no, cloud seeding actually has been used for decades in a place like Utah. We know that it's maybe the most cost-effective way to get more water on the land. landscape and it is completely safe. And we need to be basing our policy in those kinds of facts

rather than some misconceptions about the technology that some environmentalists or other interests might be kind of pushing. In your article, you mentioned that eight other states use this technology, such as California, Arizona, and Nevada. And specifically those three states, they pay other states to use cloud seeding so that more rainwater will come down the Colorado River. And those other drier states will be able to use that water more. Are there other states specifically that you would like to see implement this strategy? Yeah, I think that states especially across the west would be really benefited by considering how they can use cloud seeding to increase their snowfall and even potentially their rainfall.

So think about a state like Texas. Texas has seen huge population growth in the state and are seeing their water supplies really constrained. They're investing, and I think wisely, in technologies like desalination and water efficiency, cloud seeding needs to be part of that solution. Texas could use cloud seeding to increase the amount of snow or increase the amount of snow that's upstream of them and even potentially down the line, increase rain on the landscape. So if Texas would consider going into this, that could be really good. And even places like Florida.

So right now, Florida is much the state of Florida is in a state of drought. I don't think we should necessarily think that this is only an issue that the West will need to have. I think that this should be a tool in the toolbox for all kinds of states. Think about how we could innovatively use Cloud City for all kinds of applications, like I mentioned, wildfire management earlier. We could even use it to increase wetland habitat that's available for ducks. We could use it to increase water levels in places like the Great Salt Lake and then even other salt lakes in the West. So you have Mono Lake, for instance, in Nevada. And then there are a couple of other salt lakes that if those would dry out, would be disastrous for those local communities.

And so I think places like California should consider increased investment, Texas could consider more investment, even states like the Midwest, where we see increasing concerns that the aquifer that they're dependent on is depleting, the Ogalala aquifer. If states like Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota wanted to address some of those challenges, they could look into cloud seeding and take lessons learned from Utah to increase their water supply. Yeah, definitely. I'm a California resident. And I guess one of the concerns I do see with this is California does receive quite a bit of

snow and rain, especially in the winter. I mean, Mammoth Mountain has an extreme ski season. They're open until July or August some years. However, most of this rain really just drains to the ocean because there's some officials in the government who don't take action and really work to harvest this water. Specifically, Gavin Newsom right now is working to remove dams in order to help restore the salmon's spawning habitat. And so this begs the question of whether it would even be worth it for California to consider paying and investing in CloudSea. if they won't even store the excess water that they then receive for this technology? Yeah, I think so I assume that I don't think the Newsom is probably planning on dismantling all hydropower in the state. That would be very bad for the state.

And I agree that keeping those reliable resources online is really quite critical. I mean, it's up to each individual state on how they manage their water supply. I know that in a place like Utah, we really think that our dams are really important for both energy generation to be able to turn on and off very quickly, to have clean energy generation, also to store water. But at the end of the day, California is going to need to have water for their agriculture and other kinds of industries. And so just to build on something that you mentioned, Nicole, one reason why some California farmers aren't able to get the amount of water they need is because freshwater is diverged to the San Francisco Bay to increase,

habitat for an endangered species called the Delta Smelt. The amazing thing about cloud seeding and increased effectiveness with it is that you simply have more water to work with on the landscape if this is the case. So most of the conversation around waters is focused on water efficiency, where it says, you know, the farmers, it's maybe completely on them to reduce the amount of water that they use. And that's an important part of the dialogue. We should be able to use water efficiently. But what cloud seeding does is it just increases the pie generally. And so it increased the amount of water that we would available to allocate to things like the Delta smelt and endangered species and also to use as like farmers. And so that's why I think that cloud seeding is a really important part of the

discussion, especially as we're focused more so on abundance over scarcity and allocating scarce resources. These technologies are really important to be able to simply increase the ply, increase human flourishing generally. Absolutely. I didn't really consider it that way. Do you think that states that are working to implement cloud seeding should partner together, for this effort to be more effective. So that way they maybe have like specific locations where they're going to put these cloud seeding generators. Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I think the states are already thinking about and understand that their water systems are interconnected, right?

So a state like Texas might even consider doing cloud seeding in a place like Colorado or New Mexico to increase the snowfall that feeds into the Colorado River that they then use for agriculture in, or rather, I'm sorry, for the Rio Grande River that they then use for agriculture in the Rio Grande Valley. And so you could have a state like Texas contract with upstream states for cloud seeding and putting the generators there, targeting the infrastructure there, and that could be really beneficial. So I think the collaboration between the states would be great to see on this. Again, it could also be great to see that the country as a whole come together and recognize the importance of this technology and fund some of the high risk and

high reward research that we would need to improve the ability to use cloud seeding to increase water supply on the landscape. And so I think there are a ton of policy opportunities here. We just need to get out of the headspace that all human interventions with nature are wrong or somehow bad for the environment. You know, as a Christian, I think that humans have dominion over the earth. It says this just right in Genesis 1. And I think that we should extend that and to take that mandate very seriously to be able to wisely steward their landscape and increase the amount of resources that are available for people and for wildlife and ultimately cultivate more resources for ourselves.

Yeah. If no federal support is provided and I don't know, nope, there's no federal policies being put in place to work on this. Is this something that private companies could go ahead with or are there legal issues that extend beyond that? which requires permission from the federal government. Yeah, so you certainly have private companies that are already investing in the innovation here. One of the leaders in this space is Rainmaker, and they're very aligned on their mission to make more of Earth habitable, to increase the amount of water on the landscape. And so they're doing lots of the research and development on this. What's really helpful, though, is that the government can step in and encourage innovation, and encourage research and development

in a way that private finance it might be more difficult for them to go for. And so that's the kind of place where the government could help out in this to ultimately increase America's competitiveness and then water on the landscape. But it's certainly the case that you have private industry that's already going for this.

I think the best way for this to happen is for the government to work with a public-private partnership probably to incentivize innovation of crazy, cool, new. technologies in order to steward our landscapes. Thank you so much for all of your answers today. Our guest has been Isaiah Mending and I'm Nicole Segueratow on Radio Freehillsdale, 101.7 FM.