Click the link to read the article on the KJZZ website (Alex Hager). Here’s an excerpt:
November 10, 2026
The Central Arizona Project, or CAP, operates a 336-mile-long canal system that carries water from the Colorado River, across the desert, and into the Phoenix and Tucson areas. Since 2007, it has been part of a collaborative effort to run cloud seeding equipment in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. In a close vote at its latest board meeting, the agency chose not to renew funding for the program’s next chapter. Cloud seeding is a technology that can help boost snow totals in the mountains where the Colorado River begins. It is done by releasing particles into the air that cannot make new snow, but can essentially tell clouds where to drop their moisture. The program has brought together water users that benefit from faraway snowmelt — like CAP, water agencies in Las Vegas and Los Angeles and major farming districts in Southern California — and agencies that manage water near the snowy mountains themselves…
In recent years, water agencies in Arizona, California and Nevada have sent about $1.5 million per year to upstream cloud seeding work. Going forward, each agency’s funding for cloud seeding work would be capped at $525,000 per year in 2027 and gradually climb to $750,000 per year in 2036. CAP board members questioned whether Colorado River users in Arizona would be getting their money’s worth.
“It’s hard to see how this is really going to help our customers, especially in the environment that we’re working in right now, and our taxpayers,” said Alexandra Arboleda, a CAP board member who voted against renewing funding for the program.
Some board members expressed concern over the efficacy of cloud seeding. Scientific studies of the technology have proven that it can add snow in mountain areas, but research is limited on exactly how much.
“The science says it works, but the outcome is difficult to really measure at the end of the day” said Stephen Miller, a CAP board member who voted against renewing funding for the program. “That’s where the skepticism comes in.”
Scientists and technicians who implement cloud seeding in the Rocky Mountains are confident that it can meaningfully bring snow to places it is needed, and CAP experts made that case to board members. Nolie Templeton, CAP’s Colorado River policy and analysis manager, pointed to studies that suggest up to 20% boosts to snowpack.
