Colorado firm peddling geoengineering package to northern New Mexico

Update, 26 November: after criticism for not consulting with pueblos the application was withdrawn. Colorado has been conducting geoengineering experiments for some twenty years now it’s the driest since 1872.

Exhaust gases from aircraft are indeed mostly water vapor that become visible as a function of the dew point then often form cirrus clouds at higher altitudes and alter microclimates. 

But, in the name of geoengineering or albedo modification the US Air Force routinely sprays into the atmosphere an aerosol cocktail of silver iodide, lead iodide, aluminum oxide, barium, frozen carbon dioxide, common salt, soot from burning hazardous waste in pits and concocted at some of its bases.

So, in parts of the Southwest some authorities are so fearful of deficits in water supplies they're entertaining Durango, Colorado-based Western Weather Consultants' pitch to acquire a “weather control and precipitation enhancement license" from the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission. WWC has been shooting stuff, including silver iodide, from the ground into the atmosphere over Colorado for some twenty years.

“I like to think of it like a big bunsen burner,” said 82-year-old WWC Manager Larry Hjermstad. Weather modification grew out of experiments during World War II that looked at fog particles. From 1947 to 1952, the armed services established Project Cirrus to investigate how this might be incorporated into military applications. [Cloud seeding operation planned for Northern New Mexico]

ip photo: a contrail disperses water vapor and unburned gases over Santa Fe County.