WHITE DEER, Texas — Panhandle rancher Jay O'Brien wants the Panhandle Ground Water Conservation District to stop its cloud seeding program.

The High Plains Underground Water Conservation District around Lubbock halted its weather modification program this month, five weeks early, because of criticism from Bailey County agricultural producers. The Bailey County producers also asked the Texas Department of Agriculture and the state legislature to stop funding the program.

There are 11 weather modification programs in the state.

Cloud seeding has always been controversial. The latest round of criticism is being leveled at the Panhandle Ground Water Conservation District's program around Amarillo.

O'Brien, who manages five ranches in the Texas Panhandle, said that since the Panhandle Ground Water Conservation District started their rain enhancement program a little over two years ago, he has not gotten enough rain on an 80,000-acre ranch he runs in northwest Potter County to fill the stock tanks.

"One ranch that I operate is in the northwest corner of Potter County," O'Brien said. "It goes right up to the county line."

One of the water district precipitation maps shows that last summer that ranch got from eight to 18 inches of rain.

"That's great," O'Brien said. "I tell you, I needed it."

Since the water district started its rain enhancement program, however, O'Brien said they have not grown any grass on that ranch. O'Brien said he could have used that 18 inches of rain the district said he got last summer.

"My partner and I were sort of concerned because we never saw it," O'Brien added.

He said his rain gauge showed only a little more than seven inches of rain.

The water district has two rain gauges on that ranch. One of them showed about eight inches. The other one, however, showed 99 inches between May and September of 2001. Obviously, O'Brien said, that was false data.

O'Brien questioned where the district got the 18 inches on its map.

Where there aren't any gauges, O'Brien said, maps show lots of rain.

"We're not getting good data," he contended.

He said the district maps show an area in Armstrong County with no rain gauge getting 16 inches of rain.

"This is on the JA Ranch," O'Brien said. He also manages that historic Panhandle ranch, "and you don't have a rain gauge on the JA Ranch."

The rain amounts are interpolated by computer models using radar data, according to district officials.

"I don't have a lot of faith in these radar that show a great amount of rain," O'Brien countered.

C. E. Williams, general manager of the Panhandle Ground Water Conservation District, said O'Brien makes a good point. Williams acknowledged that the district had some bad data.

"The data will be better from now on," Williams assured.

O'Brien said his research into rain enhancement indicates that some people could be hurt by such a program.

"I'm concerned about unintended consequences," O'Brien insisted. "I'm concerned about damage that can be done by this program."

O'Brien contended there is no uniform agreement in the scientific community about whether rain enhancement programs work.

"Australia had a 40-year project going on that they just finished," O'Brien said, "and they say they're not going to do it anymore because they could show no scientific proof that it works."

Archie Ruiz, with the rain enhancement project in San Angelo, said the Australians had used generators on their airplanes instead of flares in an effort to make it rain. Generators, Ruiz said, were not as efficient.

"Flares are more effective than generators," Ruiz added. "Flares are more efficient."

O'Brien said the only court case he could find in Texas concerning weather modification was a case in the 1970s in the Panhandle, and in that case the court ordered the project stopped.

That case, Williams said, dealt with hail suppression.

The Panhandle Ground Water Conservation District is about halfway through a five-year program of rain enhancement using aircraft that seed building clouds with silver iodide crystals. District officials insist the crystals produce rain earlier and extend it longer than would otherwise be the case. They say their data indicates that more rain is generated over a larger area for a longer time, though it may be less intense than if the clouds were not seeded.

O'Brien said he needs those intense rains to fill his stock ponds.

District officials admit that a rain enhancement program, like rain itself in this semi-arid region, is imprecise.

O'Brien, however, questioned the district's data, saying double blind scientific tests are needed to prove such claims.

George Bomar, a state meteorologist, said such tests were conducted in Texas in the 1970s. Ruiz added that such tests were conducted in the 1980s and up through the 1990s in parts of the state.

Ruiz said international tests had also been conducted in Cuba and Russia.

Still, O'Brien contended that since water districts select only the best clouds to seed, the research is not scientifically sound.

"What if I had 24 bulls," O'Brien said, "and I looked at the EPDs in these bulls. I had each individual marked so I knew which ones to expect to be the best bulls, just like ya'll look at radar to find the best cloud. You gave me a paint gun and said, okay, ride out among those bulls and shoot five of them with the paint gun. The bulls run so I can't hit them all, but I get five shots. I tried to shoot the best ones according to the EPDs that I have. Then we do research on all the progeny.

"Probably, my five bulls are going to throw a little bit better calves than the rest of them, even through they're all the same genetics."

O'Brien contended that's what the water district is doing.

"Every district is doing it," he said. "They're hitting the ones with the most likely chance of rain."

Consequently, O'Brien said, they are not looking at a double-blind control.

"We're not looking at research that any professor would accept as good, valid research," O'Brien insisted. "We're looking at research like my paint ball hitting the back of that bull making better calves because I choose them, looking at the data beforehand, which ones are the best bulls."

O'Brien insisted there are unintended consequences to the project and, quoting from an American Meteorological Society report, said that while there are benefits, there are also problems with such programs.

The economic feasibility of cloud modification methods has yet to be determined, according to the report, initially written in 1992.

"More complete understanding and documentation of the physical processes involved in both deliberate and inadvertent weather modification is needed," the report said. "These are challenging tasked requiring well-focused, long-term efforts. Breakthroughs in any of these areas are unlikely."

O'Brien considers the American Meteorological Society a disinterested third party.

"This is an impartial, national organization," O'Brien said. "Not a group of people that are earning their living off seeding clouds."

The report said impacts of weather modifications on society are far-reaching, and that the ecological, hydrological, socioeconomic and legal ramifications of such activities must be considered.

"The complexities of effects of altered weather have been found to leave, in most cases, both benefits and problems in various societal sectors in environmental areas," the report said.

It goes on to say there may need to be compensation of those affected negatively, and the liabilities must be assessed and understood where possible.

"By changing the nature of clouds," O'Brien claimed, "you're impacting somebody. Somebody's getting hit negatively."

O'Brien said there is only so much moisture in the atmosphere, and if it rains one place, then someplace else is not getting rain, or as much rain, as it would normally.

Ruiz countered that the atmosphere is so large that any moisture squeezed from the clouds in the form of rain would be replaced quickly.

Williams added that the rain enhancement program works only when and where the conditions are right to form rain-bearing clouds.

Ruiz insisted the program extends the life of rain clouds, and because of that extension of time, spreads rain over a larger area. "I feel like we're still in the experimental stages of this," John Spearman, one of the PGWCD board members, said.

Initially, Spearman said, he opposed the rain enhancement program, but now he sees a need for it.

O'Brien, however, wants to know what he would need to do, short of a lawsuit, to get the district to end the program.

Charles Bowers, board president, said that if the district doesn't end the program, a few people may be hurt, but there is no evidence of that. It's difficult to prove a negative.

"If we do end it," Bowers said, "we may be hurting more people."

O'Brien said the program could potentially be detrimental.

Bowers said the program could potentially be beneficial.

"What if we stop the program," Phillip Smith, one of the directors of the water district, asked O'Brien, "and it still does not rain?"

"Pray, I guess," O'Brien replied.

"Aren't we doing that now?" Smith asked.