RAINMAKING PROBLEM

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25394, 17 January 1948, Page 4

RAINMAKING PROBLEM

LEGAL RIGHTS TO FALL American experiments in making rain by precipitation from clouds with dry ice dropped from aircraft have created legal problems. In many arid regions of the United States rain falls spottily, bringing good crops to some areas and drohght to others nearby. Rainmaking with dry ice may change the distribution of the rain and the problem now arises whether landowners deprived of rain by experiments have any legal claim against the rainmakers. The General Electric Company, which developed scientific rainmaking, has stopped all outdoor experiments, and is concerned at the prospect of damage suits if one of its aircraft makes a flight for sprinkling dry ice just before a cloudburst. Dr. C. Guy Suits, director of research for the company, says that until the legal problems are clarified there will be great difficulty in carrying out largescale experiments. So far no laws have been passed in the United States to regulate rainmaking, but one ranch manager in Nevada has made a move to claim clouds as private property. He has filed a formal claim to the water in all clouds passing over his 12,000-acre ranch because he intends to sprinkle dry ice on some of the clouds, and wants full title to the rain he may bring down, wherever it falls.