SAM Magazine-Reno, Nev., Aug. 19, 2009-After more than 30 years of stimulating snowfall in and around the Lake Tahoe Basin, the Nevada Cloud Seeding Program closed for good this month as a result of budget cuts. The program needed $550,000 to keep it going.

"It's not really good for the ski resorts or anyone worried about water supplies in Lake Tahoe," said Tom Swafford, principal research technician for the program. "Especially because it's going to reduce the amount of snow that falls in the Truckee and Tahoe Basin."

The cloud seeding program had been in effect in Tahoe since the late 1960s. Mountain-top generators or planes would shoot particles of silver iodide into storm clouds to help form ice crystals and encourage snowfall. Activated during a winter storm, the generators could squeeze another 10 to 15 percent more in snowfall, Swafford said.

Although it's difficult to measure the exact impact cloud seeding had on the snow pack each year, Federal Water Master Garry Stone said the program definitely produced additional precipitation. "It's probably going to end up having a negative affects on precipitation. It's been a good program and it has produced a greater snowpack than what we would have had."

This year, it seems, Tahoe resorts will have to rely on a strengthening El Niño to deliver additional snowfall.

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