BPPT to start cloud seeding in October

Muninggar Sri Saraswati The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Farmers in three provinces are hoping that their crops will soon see some rain as the result of government cloud seeding programs that are expected to be shortly instituted.

The provinces of West Java, Central Java and Lampung have asked the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) to get the programs underway, an agency official said Thursday.

"We started our survey this month," Baginda P. Sitorus, the director of the Weather Modification Technical Service Unit at the agency, told reporters during a media conference, adding that there was now sufficient moisture in the air to start cloud seeding.

For Central Java, Sitorus said, the BPPT would start cloud seeding after tobacco farmers in the province had brought in their harvests.

The cloud seeding operations would be jointly financed by the Coordinating Ministry for People's Welfare, the Ministry of Settlements and Regional Infrastructure, the Ministry of Agriculture and the provincial administrations, he said.

Baginda gave few details about the costs involved or for how long the cloud seeding operations would last in the affected provinces, but he said that his unit would need some Rp 800 million for a period of 10 days.

In April, the BPPT conducted two cloud seeding operations in West Java, which cost the agency Rp 1.6 billion to produce 283 million cubic meters of water, which was used for farming, consumption and electricity generation purposes.

A number of observers had earlier suggested that the government would be better off supplying clean water directly to communities in the worst-hit areas using the money that would otherwise have been spent on cloud seeding. The water derived from cloud seeding, they said, would not be enough to satisfy the public's need for clean water as much of the water would be absorbed into the soil.

However, Sitorus insisted that cloud seeding would be beneficial as the water it produced could be used not only for consumption purposes, but also for agriculture and electricity generation.

He confirmed that the rainwater derived from cloud seeding could also be consumed as it did not contain any hazardous substances as some people feared.

It is hoped that the cloud seeding in West Java will provide relief for the farmers in that province, where a total of 300,000 hectares of crops have failed due to the severe drought.

It was also expected to help replenish a number of major reservoirs in the province, such as the Jatiluhur reservoir, which supplies water to one of the largest hydropower plants on Java island.

The Jatiluhur Dam's director of operations, Tukul Santoso, said that the water level in the reservoir was still falling and would soon be less than 80 millimeters, which was only enough water to drive two of the six turbines in the power plant.

"We expect all the generators to stop operating in late September if the water level continues to decline," he said.