LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Nevada and other states in the Colorado River Basin continue to face a water crisis. Drought has stretched on for more than two decades and is compounded by the effects of climate change. Last year, Lake Mead dipped to an all-time low.
Can human intervention make a difference? Can we get more desperately needed water from the clouds to the ground? FOX5 went on a journey seeking an answer to that question up to Mt. Potosi where a cloud seeding generator is located.
Cloud seeding is something that’s been done for decades but the generator, which specifically targets Red Rock Canyon, was only set up last fall. It all started with one Blue Diamond resident’s idea.
“Red Rock Canyon was so dry, and everything was dying. It was absolutely so heartbreaking to watch all the Joshua Trees dying,” described Pauline van Betten who lives just outside Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Van Betten was losing hope believing the landscape would continue to dry out and fade into a barren desert. But what can one person possibly do to change that?
“You start to think, if we don’t do something are we just going to have a graveyard of trees?” Van Betten recounted. One day, when listing a property in Lovell Canyon for sale she stumbled across a strange machine.
“Nobody in the family knew what it was because the person who owned the land had died and so I called up DRI and they said this is a cloud seeder and seeds the clouds over Mt. Charleston,” Van Betten shared. When Van Betten learned the machine helped generate snow and rain from passing storms, an idea flashed like a lightning bolt.
“I said, ‘Well could we do something that would give rain to Red Rock Canyon?’… they’re like, ‘Absolutely. 100 percent,’” Van Betten recalled.
A cloud seeding machine has a hefty price tag, one Van Betten was determined to find a way to pay. Van Betten appealed to the public in a meeting held online. In one month last fall, the small nonprofit group aptly named “Save Red Rock” raised $100,000 for the generator.
MORE: Cloud seeding helps extract more water from rounds of winter storms in Southern Nevada
“It’s a generator that helps produce additional precipitation when the right storms move through, we can get at least 10 percent additional precipitation,” Detra Page, Communications Manager for Desert Research Institute (DRI) told FOX5′s Kim Passoth while at the site of the machine. Scientists from DRI, a part of the Nevada System of Higher Education, chose a remote spot far down a rocky dirt road on Mt. Potosi to target passing storm clouds just before they reached Red Rock Canyon.
“There is a big valley there to the south. The storms just come in through there,” Van Betten pointed out while on the mountain. The generator targeting Red Rock Canyon is now one of three in the Spring Mountains and one of 30 managed by DRI throughout the West. DRI says their generators add billions of gallons to the water supply every year. Not only do they do the research, they also build, install, and remotely operate the cloud seeders.
“We have 24/7 climatologists who are watching weather patterns and when we see the right storm that we can seed, then we remotely kick these on,” Page stated. How do they work?
“It was accidentally discovered in the late 1940s that if you introduced ice into certain types of clouds you could get those ice crystals to grow into snowflake sizes and fall out,” explained Frank McDonough, Research Meteorologist at DRI. Silver iodide is fed through tubes until it reaches a flame on top of the machine and is shot into passing storm clouds.
“We are specifically introducing the ideal size, shape, and crystalline structure of dust particles so that the water molecule can grab onto it grow and fall out in our targeted area,” stated Patrick Melarkey, Research Field Technician at DRI.
“The amounts we use are quite small. About five pounds of this material over the course of an entire winter… it’s not soluble in water it remains solid it is not slurped up by plants,” McDonough added.
In its first winter season, the seeder targeting Red Rock was turned on during a dozen storms. How much water did that add to the canyon?
“We had over two billion gallons of water added to the system last year,” Van Betten reported.
“This last winter was one for the record books. We probably won’t see anything like that for a while… if you could take all that water and send it into people’s pipes that is enough water for 20,000 households,” McDonough shared. This season may be the first true test as there may be fewer storms to seed but this time the state will pick up the tab.
Group raising money for cloud seeding Red Rock Canyon
“We knew Save Red Rock, a small nonprofit, is not going to be able to fund it in perpetuity,” Van Betten said. During this year’s legislative session in Nevada, state lawmakers passed a cloud seeding bill unanimously, allocating $1.2 million for DRI’s cloud seeding across the state. The generator bringing more water to Red Rock Canyon, once just Van Betten’s pipe dream, will be fully funded for at least two years.
“In the spring we saw all the streams were running, people were posting pictures of themselves swimming in the swimming holes… it has just been beyond our wildest expectations,” Van Betten beamed.
As climate change has changed our environment, especially in Southern Nevada, Van Betten believes cloud seeding is a way to restore a natural balance. One machine making a positive impact on millions of people, plants, and wildlife.
MAKING IT RAIN: New Nevada law allocates $1.2 million for cloud seeding
“Right now, for us to feel hope and we have a possibility to really have a positive impact on our environment, it is really what we need. Even the average man can help with Red Rock Canyon,” Van Betten asserted.
The cloud seeding season started November 1, 2023 and runs through March 2024. This winter, DRI says their cloud seeding efforts will not target Kyle and Lee Canyon as the mountain was hit hard by the remnants of Hurricane Hilary.
