LARAMIE -- Despite skeptics within the scientific community and a well-publicized history of failure during the 1970s, the state is ready to go ahead with a new five-year, $8.9 million cloud-seeding project, state officials told the Platte River Basin Advisory Group here Tuesday.

The project is to be one of the best funded and best researched cloud-seeding attempts in the United States, officials from the Wyoming Water Development Commission said, and parts of Wyoming should see a direct increase in snowpack of at least 10 percent due to the program. It could begin as soon as this winter.

The Sierra Madre, Medicine Bow and Wind River mountain ranges are the targets for the state-funded "weather modification" project. It aims to increase snowfall by releasing a silver iodide compound into the clouds around the ranges using fixed platforms and special aircraft.

According to the commission, which oversees the project, while the cloud seeding would only occur during winter, the increased snowpack in the mountains should yield at least 130,000 to 260,000 acre feet of additional runoff per season.

"This is not a drought-busting tool, but a long-term water management strategy," said Barry Lawrence, the commission project manager. "You have to have the right conditions ... and the Medicine Bow and Sierra Madres are two areas with the greatest prospects of success."

Lawrence said the nearly $9 million price tag is estimated to yield increased precipitation at an average cost of about $8 per acre foot of water, an estimate he called "real conservative." By comparison, according to the commission, other well and reservoir projects in the state often yield water at the cost of hundreds of dollars per acre foot.

Daniel Breed, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. -- an agency that will receive about 25 percent of the money to evaluate the success of the program -- said concerns over environmental impacts and downwind effects are largely unfounded.

"It may increase precipitation by 10 percent in the immediate area, but what comes out is about 1 percent of all the water vapor. Studies (on downwind effects) are inconclusive, because you're taking out such a very small percentage of the water mass that is up there," he said.

The Fargo, N.D.-based Weather Modification Inc., which did not have a representative at Tuesday's meeting, will receive the other 75 percent of the money to conduct the actual cloud-seeding operations.

Breed said environmental studies on the effects of silver iodide -- which is considered to be a heavy metal -- have proven negligible in previous cases. However, he admitted, in response to questioning, none of the nearly $9 million budget will be spent on studying the direct environmental effects from the Wyoming cloud-seeding project.

"There is very little impact. You are talking about very minute areas of the mountain," he said. "We do need to do some measurements of silver iodide immediately after it dispenses, and hopefully we will have that opportunity, but downwind the levels are virtually undetectable."

In regard to effects on wildlife, he said, "ideally, it would be nice to catch fish and test the levels of silver, but this (project) is not funded for that."

The majority of silver iodide will be dispensed using fixed, ground-based "seed generators" via radio control when the proper atmospheric conditions prevail.

According to pictures provided at the meeting, the generators appear largely unobtrusive, taking up about a 10- by 10-foot space on the ground, with a 20-foot-high tower. Some 24 generators are planned for the project, and are to be split between the Sierra Madre/Medicine Bow region and the Wind River Range, although the exact locations are yet to be determined.

"It's all yet to be decided," Lawrence said. "We will determine the most appropriate locations and then worry about getting the permits."

Lawrence said federal, state and private lands would be considered for the generators, although a special aircraft will also disperse the silver iodide in select locations. He said Wyoming's cloud-seeding initiative is designed to be a pilot project, and may lead the way for additional cloud-seeding projects in the future.

The commission said Western states spend upwards of $15 million annually on more than 45 weather modification programs.

Three private silver iodide generators currently operate on Wyoming's Wind River Range between November and March, and the state of Utah has seeded clouds in the mountains in the southwestern part of the state since 1973, including a number of generators that are actually located within the Wyoming border.

NewsTracker

* Last we knew: The Wyoming Water Development Commission entered a contract for cloud seeding in the Wind River Mountains and at the headwaters of the North Platte River.

* The latest: State officials and contractors outlined plans for the $8.9 million, five-year project on Tuesday in Laramie.

* What's next: Cloud seeding could begin later this year at a number of sites around the state.