Messing with the weather---just can't stop scratching that itch....

[Guest guest]

From Kim:

 

 

 

TO: Tricia Cortez, Editor, Laredo Morning Times tricia

cc:

Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin Coalition: pkate; unclergr; Tyudziima; gbravo; crincon; lservin; laboites; tvaughan; sgonzalez; cednemnl; lanie8248; ccullar; meg434f; jas; skotchian; saconbal Dr. Nick Begich drnick

Immediately below are several newspaper articles concerning IOLA (Ionization of the Local Atmosphere) / Provaqua in Webb County, Texas, one of the first sites in the United States to induce both positive and negative ionizing waves into the atmosphere to generate rainfall. Here is a lesson for you on ions:

Positive ions are bad

Negative ions are good

 

The IOLA/Provaqua system will adversely affect any animal or person within the area. Using artificial means to adjust the atmospheric positive ion ratios could lead to liability issues and Webb County may be sued in a court of law. The side effects from increased positive ions in the air at ground level (as noted in the Chinook wind in Calgary and the Santa Ana winds in southern California compiled by a Swiss meteorological report in 1974) could lead to the following:

 

Physical side effects: Body pains, sick headaches, dizziness, twitching of the eyes, nausea, fatigue, faintness, disorders in saline (salt) budget with fluctuations in electrolytical metabolism (calcium and magnesium; critical for alcoholics), water accumulation, respiratory difficulties, allergies, asthma, heart and circulatory disorders (heart attacks approx. 50% higher) low blood pressure, slowing down in reaction time, more sensitivity to pain, inflammations, bleeding embolisms of the lungs, and thrombosis.

Psychological side effects: Emotional unbalance, irritation, vital disinclination, compulsion to meditate, exhaustion, apathy, disinclination or listlessness toward work (poor school achievement), insecurity, anxiety, depression (especially after age forty to fifty); rate of attempted suicide about 20% higher, larger number of admittance's to clinics in drug cases, homicide rate increase.

Do you really want to subject Webb County, Texas residents to this? I urge you to stop Webb County Commissioners and Judge Bruni from implementing IOLA/Provaqua.

KD Weber; wvadreamin~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES:

www.gsreport.com/articles/art000014.html

26 May 2003Proposed Webb weather modifier gets conferenceBY LAURA RIDDER-FLYNNTimes copy editorA new weather modification program that is expected to inaugurate its U.S. efforts in Webb County announced it will present the project plans at a binational Partnership for Prosperity June 2003 conference in San Francisco.Dallas-based Earthwise Technologies Inc. garnered support from the Webb County Commissioners Court for its weather modification project "Provaqua" in mid April.The multi-million dollar technology project is based on what the company calls IOLA (Ionization of the Local Atmosphere), which officials said they hope will increase rainfall in Laredo and the Rio Grande Basin from 15 to 300 percent.The technology involves

using towers to emit ionizing waves that "provoke rainfall by causing a more rapid condensation of ambient water vapor in the targeted air space."Stephen Howard, CEO for Earthwise, met with county officials last week to go over the project's plans and to announce that the company has been invited to the binational conference.U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexico President Vicente Fox created the U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Prosperity in September 2001.The initiative is meant to create a "private-public alliance to harness the power of the private sector to foster an environment in which no Mexican feels compelled to leave his home for lack of jobs or opportunity," according to the U.S. Department of State.As part of that effort, the two countries will sponsor the San Francisco conference June 9, 10.Howard said Mexico's federal agency overseeing science and technology development, CONACYT, extended the invitation to

Earthwise."We are just delighted that we have been asked to do this," he said. "This invitation has brought our project closer to reality than we had expected."Howard said the people involved with the company worked on several test models of the technology in Salamanca, Guanajuato and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.The Guanajuato tests occurred in 2000, when Fox was governor of that state. Howard added that Fox was personally interested in the program, but after he left Guanajuato to become president of Mexico, the new state administration did not extend funding for the program.Howard acknowledges that many people often find the plans and technology of the company dubious. He added, however, that once the technology is explained, doubters are often more open-minded.The system is like cloudseeding, he said, only in that it attempts to cause or "provoke" condensation of water vapor in the atmosphere so it will become heavy enough to fall

to the ground as rain.Cloudseeding, a chemical process, requires an aircraft to release silver iodide flares into a convective cloud to get this result. However, IOLA uses "ionizing wave emissions" to stimulate condensation via "electrical field attraction" of the water vapor particle nuclei to each other."If we change the charge on the particles, we can increase condensation speed," Howard said.He has been meeting with state and county officials to get the local project under way before the end of 2003.When the county commissioners court voted to support the project locally, it also stipulated that county's infrastructure, legal, environment and purchasing departments analyze the project and create an "evaluation protocol by which to judge the system's effectiveness."Howard and county officials have yet to name a price for this project. They say that it is too early to determine how much equipment,

services, contracts, licenses and other items could cost. Also unknown, they said, is how many towers will be necessary in on the Texas and Mexico sides of the border north of Falcon and south of Amistad reservoirs.Howard added that the costs would be "minimal" compared to the "cost benefits" based on the serious need for water in an arid region that is challenged with water limitations. Storage capacity in the Falcon and Amistad reservoirs on the Rio Grande have been well below 50 percent for many years.On May 17, the International Boundary and Water Commissioner reported the system at 36.10 percent of U.S. total conservation capacity. Mexico's total conservation capacity was at only 5.51.Howard explained the local project is more of a "proving ground" for the technology in the U.S. and it will include an "objective evaluation team" of scientists and other "experts.""This is a not-for-profit technology demonstration," Howard said. "The outcome will

be measured by the information we can obtain."Howard said the technology involves 70 years of research and was earnestly studied by of a group of scientists in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War who found themselves without a home or support for their work when the U.S.S.R. collapsed in the early 1990s.Some of those scientists came to the West after the Soviet break-up, and Earthwise representatives met with a group of them five years ago, Howard said.In collaboration with those scientists, he added, five projects have been tested, including the ones in Guanajuato and Abu Dhabi.madmax.lmtonline.com/main...603/s4.htm

2 December 2003The Laredo Morning TimesBruni: Rain "A Done Deal"By Tricia CortezLaredo Morning Times"It's a done deal," Webb County Judge Louis H. Bruni announced Monday after signing a $1.2 million contract for a weather modification project, known as Provaqua. It is expected to increase rainfall in the Rio Grande basin by at least 15 percent.Bruni made this statement after he and Steven C. Howard, president and CEO of Earthwise Technologies Inc., signed all necessary documents in the 27-page contract Monday.The project calls for building four ionization towers that use a technology known as IOLA, or Ionization of the Local Atmosphere, to create rain.Webb County will be the first county in Texas and the U.S. to embrace this unproven technology that county and company officials say has been developed over the

past 20 years by Russian scientists.Perhaps the most significant feature of the contract, however, is that there are no provisions that would allow the county to ever recover its $1.2 million investment.The contract specifically denies the county the right to any ownership of the technology and equipment associated with the project.Furthermore, there is no indication of what it will cost the county on an on-going basis if the one-year trial period bears fruit, and there is no guarantee from ETI that the project will succeed at all.Should the project fail, the county would be left with no recourse whatsoever to recover its investment, so long as ETI makes a "best efforts basis" to meet its system goals. This would be overseen by a 20-member Evaluation Committee."Neither the county nor any other person, other than ETI, may ever, under any circumstances, become the beneficial owner of the IOLA technology or any of ETI's real properties," states

section 2(L) on page 15 of the contract."ETI will use its best efforts to perform under this contract, including, but not limited to, achievement of the system goals. However, ETI does not guarantee its performance with regard to the accomplishment of the system goals and does not provide any assurance whatsoever with regard to the resulting influences," the following section, 2(M), states.According to the Definitions section of the contract, "resulting influences" means "any of the effects that are observable or that can be reasonably inferred from the operation of (Provaqua) or any part thereof."Bruni explained Monday why the county had no other option but to pursue this project in hopes of increasing the amount of water available to the region."When I make it rain..." Bruni began, before shifting to another thought. "Members of this commissioners court have seen the options - spend $100 million to build a pipeline from San Antonio, or spend $100

million to go to Austin, or wait 10 years for a desalination plant and spend another $100 million and risk the chance of Laredo going dry."Bruni continued, "for $1.2 million, this was our only option. I did it, and I stand by my decision."According to the contract, the county is paying ETI to implement the Provaqua project "that includes the design, construction and operations of structures and equipment necessary to implement an archetype IOLA system."The demonstration, or trial, period would allow ETI to evaluate the technical efficacy, effectiveness, and cost benefits of IOLA to provoke rainfall in the Rio Grande basin.The target area for the Provaqua project covers the Rio Grande's two major reservoirs. It stretches in oval fashion from Amistad dam in Del Rio down to Falcon dam in Zapata. Laredo sits in the middle of both dams.As for ETI's stated "primary" and "superlative" goals, the contract states that Provaqua should increase the

amount of rainfall by 15 to 25 percent.Furthermore, the contract states Provaqua should increase the following: quality of life, additional negative air ions, growth of regional plants and animals and revenues for agriculture, livestock, fishing and tourism.Provaqua's goals also call for a decrease in: the rate of evaporation of surface waters, harmful ultraviolet rays, erosion from flooding, air pollution, health problems associated with poor water and thermal inversion events.www.rioweb.org/Archive/js...20203.html27 December 2003The Star TelegramPolitics ground proposal to test rainmaking abilityBy Karen BrooksStar-Telegram Staff WriterLAREDO - Farmers and ranchers in these parts have been seeding clouds and harvesting rain for decades, scientifically fighting what has been a losing

battle against the arid climate of the Lower Rio Grande Basin.But new Russian technology that purports to build rain clouds by shooting ions into the sky is instead creating a firestorm on the Texas border.A political squabble has broken out between Webb County Judge Luis Bruni and the four county commissioners, who can't decide if they want to be the first county in the country to test the IOLA [ionization of the local atmosphere] technology.Last week, they voted to back out of a $1.2 million contract to test the technology, known as the Provaqua project, just two weeks after they gave it their unanimous support.The commissioners said they withdrew because of public concern over using tax money to fund what amounts to research. But Bruni, who calls the commissioners "spineless," insists that fear of losing in upcoming elections won out over taking "bold new steps"

to combat the area's water crisis."Small-time provincialism prevails over courage and vision," said Raul Casso IV, Bruni's chief of staff.Bruni vows to use his $500,000 discretionary fund and grants or private donations to fund the Provaqua project whether his fellow officials like it or not. And he wonders how the county will get out of the contract without spending more money than Provaqua would have cost."I stand behind the project," said Bruni, who said he has grown accustomed to jokes from skeptics about how "Luis wants to make it rain."Commissioner Jerry Vasquez, who changed his mind after the man running for his seat spoke against the idea, said he's responding to his constituents. "The people rule," he said.Steve Howard, the Dallas businessman who's promoting the project, said he will triple the company's efforts to educate local citizens."The citizens have an absolute right and responsibility to voice their opinions," said Howard, chief executive officer of Mexico City-based Earthwise Technologies, which specializes in bringing emerging environmental technologies to the United States. "However, there has not been enough time to completely inform the citizens so that they have the opportunity to make a well-informed decision."Supporters say IOLA can increase rainfall from 15 to 300 percent. It can also, they say, increase animal and plant life by 15 to 100 percent and reduce ozone by at least 15 percent.Although meteorologists are buzzing about IOLA, they are reluctant to embrace it. Some say they're concerned that altering the atmosphere without more study could have negative effects in other regions.In October, the

National Academy of Sciences urged the government to do more research before embarking on any large-scale weather projects -- saying that even cloud seeding isn't grounded in significant scientific modeling or research."The ionization purports not only to deal with existing clouds, but to cultivate them, to actually bring them into being," said George Bomar, who approves weather-modification projects for the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. "That is the sort of thing any bona fide meteorologist would say, 'I've got to see that to believe it. And even then, I've got to have some other evidence.' "Bruni argues that local water woes need progressive solutions and points to IOLA successes in Mexico, Russia and the United Arab Emirates."The city of Laredo and Webb County spend millions on feasibility studies, so what's the big uproar?" he said.

"Give the guy a break. Give the project a chance."The project would include $2.4 million from the Mexican government, which has already supported IOLA rainmaking and pollution-control projects. Earthwise officials say they're just weeks away from securing the Mexican funding.The plan was to move a cadre of Russian scientists to Laredo and use the IOLA system for one year over the watershed areas for Amistad and Falcon reservoirs -- about 300 square kilometers stretching from the Del Rio/Big Bend area to just south of Laredo, and into Mexico.Howard said that unlike most feasibility studies, the Provaqua demonstration could provide an immediate benefit to the region while allowing IOLA backers to establish credibility in the United States."It is important to note that we live in an era of technology advancing at a geometric rate," he wrote in a letter to county commissioners earlier this year. "What was

fiction only yesterday can become fact overnight."New technologyDeveloped out of Cold War-era research and eventually moved to Mexico City after the breakup of the USSR, the IOLA system is said to dissipate fog, reduce air pollution and affect rainfall.Mounted on two-story platforms, generators spew waves of "single-charged" ions into the sky that have either a positive or negative charge. The ions strengthen the electrical charges of solid particles already floating in the air such as dust, smoke, pulverized coal and pollen.According to backers, changing the charge of the particles allows water to attach to them more quickly than it would naturally, and clouds grow faster. Inside the cloud, the ultra-charged particles also attract each other faster, building heavier drops of water vapor that eventually become rain.Although no Western scientist has

published any papers on the IOLA technology, several trials in other parts of the world have reportedly produced positive results.In 1999, IOLA was said to have reduced ozone over Mexico City by 23 percent and is about to get permanent funding there. In the United Arab Emirates, IOLA increased rain more than 200 percent, according to Earthwise. A similar project in Guanajuato, Mexico, broke a long drought, backers say.Meteorologists in Texas are skeptical, but they're interested in the results of the Webb County trials -- if they happen."Some of their spots [in Mexico] were located close to mountains, and mountains are favorable spots for producing clouds anyway," said Todd Flannigan, a meteorologist for the South Texas Weather Modification Association, which promotes cloud-seeding projects. "If they were able to prove outright that this works, that would be wonderful."According to the National Academy of Science, the United States spent more than $20

million a year on weather-modificiation research in the 1970s, yet today spends less than half a million dollars annually.The absence of such research, particularly scientific models on how cloud creation affects global weather patterns, is what makes people such as science writer Nick Begich nervous.Begich, an Alaskan who has testified before the European Parliament and published three books on manipulation of the environment, said using such technology is like being in kindergarten and "trying to go directly to graduate school.""You start modifying the weather and you cut off someone's food supply somewhere else -- we would consider that an act of war," he said. "I would take the position at this point that until we can fully model the global weather systems, we can't take the risk."No other options

Texans have been squeezing drops out of otherwise barren skies since the 1950s.Initial cloud-seeding efforts were followed by federal research projects in the 1970s and '80s, and the state began funding coordinated projects in the 1990s.Today, those projects cover some 44 million acres, showing rainfall increases in some areas from 15 to 25 percent.In spite of that success, however, Laredo found itself in 1998 with only a six-month supply of drinking water until a godsend rain in the Big Bend area replenished Amistad Reservoir, said Bruni, a former city councilman who helped bring cloud-seeding projects to the area.Now he's challenging his critics to propose a better solution."We have no other options, so take your pick," he said. "The detractors and my critics can laugh all they want, but we're going to have the last laugh."www.dfw.com/mld/starteleg...260.htm?1c

29 December 2003The Sun HeraldSouth Texas county eyes test of rain-making technologyBY KAREN BROOKSKnight Ridder NewspapersLAREDO, Texas - (KRT) - Farmers and ranchers in these parts have been seeding clouds and harvesting rain for decades, scientifically fighting what has been a losing battle against the arid climate of the Lower Rio Grande Basin.But new Russian technology that purports to build rain clouds by shooting ions into the sky is instead creating a firestorm on the Texas border.A political squabble has broken out between Webb County Judge Luis Bruni and the four county commissioners, who can't decide if they want to be the first county in the country to test the IOLA (ionization of the local atmosphere) technology.Last week, they voted to back out of a $1.2 million contract to test the technology, known as the Provaqua

project, just two weeks after they gave it their unanimous support.The commissioners said they withdrew because of public concern over using tax money to fund what amounts to research. But Bruni, who calls the commissioners "spineless," insists that fear of losing in coming elections won out over taking "bold new steps" to combat the area's water crisis.Steve Howard, the Dallas businessman who's promoting the project, said he will triple the company's efforts to educate local residents.www.sunherald.com/mld/sun...594219.htm

27 January 2004The Laredo Morning TimesWater, Projects Make Splash at Webb MeetBy Tricia CortezLaredo Morning TimesWater was a major topic of debate at the Webb County Commissioners Court meeting Monday.County Judge Louis H. Bruni and the four commissioners spent nearly one-and-a-half hours arguing over the need to prioritize the county's search for a secondary source of water.Bruni argued the county must commit to exploring a secondary source of water, while Commissioner Jerry Vasquez said the county should first prioritize the multimillion-dollar projects it wants to fund and pursue, referring to the proposed secondary water project, the proposed fifth bridge and the Youth Village juvenile detention center "We cannot continue to grow as county government and expand and take on the responsibility of projects of this magnitude. We will have to prioritize," Vasquez said.Commissioner David Cortez said

voters should decide if they want the county to pursue a fifth bridge or secondary water project.Bruni said water should be the county's number one priority.The proposed secondary water project could cost at least $6 million, County Engineer Tomas Rodriguez informed the court.This would cover the cost of a well, a 16-inch water line that would run 22 miles, a booster station, a water treatment plant and any associated consulting fees.Webb County, like the city of Laredo, wants to tap into a nearby aquifer to augment the local water supply, which is fed almost entirely by the Rio Grande..... www.rioweb.org/Archive/js...12704.html

 

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