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Money troubles

Less money brings scrutiny to weather modification

The extent of cloud seeding activities in Ward County could be part of the discussion at a weather modification meeting scheduled for Jan. 23.

Darin Langerud, director of the North Dakota Atmospheric Resource Board, said a draft budget will be presented at the annual meeting held with counties to discuss the coming year’s operations. He told Ward County commissioners Tuesday that the meeting would be the time to talk about whether some Ward townships will be in or out of the 2018 cloud seeding program.

Township chairmen received letters from the chairman of the Ward County Weather Modification Authority, inquiring about the townships’ interests in participating in the program in 2018.

The Ward County Commission budgeted $100,000 for the controversial weather modification in 2018, or $87,000 less than the county authority requested. In light of opposition by some rural residents who questioned the program’s effectiveness, Commissioner John Fjeldahl said Ward County might have to follow the lead of Slope County, where only selected townships participate in cloud seeding.

Hank Bodmer of Kenmare, authority chairman, said only about six of the 57 townships have replied to the letters to indicate they want out. Even if those townships are excluded, it won’t solve the dilemma created when the county commission trimmed the authority’s budget request, he said.

Ward, Williams, Burke, Mountrail and McKenzie counties make up District II and pay into a shared program based on a formula. Ward’s 2018 contribution of $100,000 falls short of the formula.

“We can’t meet our obligations to the other counties in the program,” Bodmer said. How that shortfall will play out at the Jan. 23 meeting is uncertain, he said.

No location has been set yet for the Jan. 23 meeting.

Cloud seeding is funded with participating county and state dollars.

Langerud reported to commissioners that expenditures in District II in 2017 were about 10 percent below budget. The program spent $730,021, or $78,616 less than anticipated. Expenditures in Bowman and Slope counties in District I were down to a lesser extent.

Reduced spending created carryover funds that allowed the Ward County Weather Modification Authority to request less than the usual contribution of about $200,000 from the county commission for next year.

Langerud said expenses were down, “principally due to the drought and the lack of opportunities for seeding this summer because there weren’t many clouds out there to seed.”

Budgeted flight hours were 630 hours for fixed aircraft. Total hours flown were 287.73 hours. Flights were conducted on 36 of 92 project days.

“So just over a third of the days of the season was there any opportunity for seeding, whether reconnaissance or hail suppression or rain enhancement,” Langerud said.

The flight hours included 155 hours of hail suppression activity, 87 hours of rain enhancement, 37 hours of reconnaissance and eight hours for other activities.

Langerud called it the lowest number of hours in at least the past 10 years.

“It’s actually fewer than the 2011 season when we had a five-week suspension to start the summer because of the flood. We flew fewer hours this year than we did in 2011,” he said.

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