Aspinall Capital Comments: Rain Making, Feb. 11, 1959

1959

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11_{Rain making" has come a long way since the days of itinerant tub thumpers} who promised showers, or from Indian dancers appealing to the rain gods. Nowadays

itts called "weather modification," and the devices used to produce added rainfall and snowfall are electronic "brains II _{and silver iodide generators,}

Through use of such scientific methods it is possible to increase

p!'e~ipitation by some 10 to

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year by the President's Special Advisory Committee on Weather Control. This is especially true in the mountainous areas of the West.

That's why a bill introduced in the House this week is so intriguing. It proposes to utilize proven scientific methods on a vast scale to increase water supplies of the Colorado River by as much as a million acre feet annually.

The weather program would be condµcted in the seven states of the Colorado River Basin --- Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada and California. It would be carried out by the Department of the Interior and the National Science

:oundation,-utiliz_ing electroniC->--Computing-,-ma-chi-ner-y te--p-.redict the weather, and silver iodide generators to induce added precipitation from storm clouds,

The same scheme has been tried in several locales in Western Colorado and other parts of the country, with varying degrees of success, but never has there been any project on the vast scale proposed in the legislation introduced this week by a number of congressmen from the western states. The proposal is for a ten

year program, at a cost of $1 million annually. If it were successful in increasing the flow of the Colorado River by one million acre feet or more per year it would be more than worth it, since the additional water would be used over and over on its way downstream.

resources, no possibilities for increasing the amount of water available can be overlooked.

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The first two major legislative items of the 86th Congress to reach the floor of the House for action were considered this week. The bills concerned the GI home loan program and extension of the draft law.

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The GI home loan bill would raise the interest rate on GI loans from four and three-quarters to five and one-quarter per cent. It would also authorize

$300 million for direct GI home loans, This legislation secured overwhelming support on Wednesday.

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Hawaii moved one step nearer statehood this week when the House Interior

Committee favorably reported by a

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admit Hawaii to the Union as the 5oth state. That legislation now faces its

toughest hurdle in the Rules committee.

WA N. ASPINAL , M.C.