Sylvia Cole's last two stories on cloud seeding and the complete lack of government involvement has helped inspire me to look even further into the potential dangers of spraying chemicals into clouds to try and change the weather.I will leave the modified weather patterns to farmers and ranchers to the east of us here in the seeding belt, who may be experiencing a decrease in the natural rainfall.I can accept the sudden and overwhelming rain and hail we experience many times after a seeding plane releases silver iodide over the foothills.I can even accept the consequences of their weather tampering with severe, localized storms causing damage to buildings and crops and gardens in the Sundre and Bergen areas.What I refuse to accept or ignore is the fact that we here in the Sundre area and foothills are getting the initial fallout of Weather Modification Inc.'s cloud-seeding solution. Terry Krauss of the Weather Modification group may claim this is ìnot even a poisonî and compare it with fertilizer, but I dare anyone to look further into this chemical compound and then feel comfortable sprinkling it around their yard. According to the U.S. Environmental Agency, silver iodide is a ìtoxic pollutantî and ìhazardousî and it is recognized by HMIS as a health risk. The Weather Modification Association's own studies find it harmful to fish. The ingredients of the seeding solution cocktail include dichlorobenzene, a common pesticide ingredient recognized as a carcinogen and linked to cancer in the United States. I don't care HOW much is deemed acceptable, I do not want to be sprayed with it, period.Compare it to chemical fertilizer all you want, Mr. Krauss. Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not AGAINST THE LAW to spray people and their property with fertilizer without their permission? WHY is this any different?The Alberta Environment Agency in the ìHellseedingî article claim they ìdon't do weather. We are like air, land and water.î Excuse me? This powder is IN our air and water and falls on our land. How much of a toxic chemical is in fact harmful to us and the environment? Why are we letting the cloud seeders and their peers do their own testing and just trusting them? How much money must be theoretically saved in hail claims to make the potential poisoning of people acceptable? WHY is a private industry like insurance ALLOWED to dump a chemical cocktail on the citizens of this province?!No matter how many parts per million are deemed ìsafeî in rainfall, residue left once the water evaporates is 100 per cent. It is insoluble, repeatedly falling from the sky, and we must walk on it. It may be only five pounds per cloud, but it is repeated all summer, over and over. Not only that, but its reliability is very questionable, considering the most expensive hailstorm in Canadian history happened in Calgary on July 12, 2010, an area that is ìprotectedî by hail seeding. In a world where the weather has been dramatic and changeable the last couple of years, why on earth would we throw a toxic, dangerous question mark into the heavens?I encourage everyone to write the Alberta Environment Agency and your MLA and insist something be done about the unregulated science experiment happening in our own backyard that we are being forced to deal with.More information and my references can be found at Albertans against Hailseeding on Facebook.Wendy SchroederSundre
