Jun 08 2010
CA: Anti-cloud seeding initiative
The small city of Mount Shasta is aiming to set some water law precedent with an initiative intended to block cloud seeding as a way of producing more rain water.
The effort is in response to a proposal by the electric utility PG&E, which supplies much of the electricity for California, to start cloud seeding in the Shasta reservoir areas.
One local advocate said at a May 24 meeting that “this ordinance is the embryo of change for our state.”
But City Attorney John Kenney said in a May 21 memo that “the initiative power cannot be exercised to adopt rules that are beyond the power of the City Council to adopt. This initiative, overly ambitious in scope, attempts to regulate matters beyond the boundaries of the City and beyond the legislative authority of the City to enact.”
It follows up on a proposal from Nestle to extra water for bottling from the area.
