The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly on Tuesday called on state and federal governments to restrict or regulate weather modification or geoengineering activities — like a cloud seeding operation that says it generated rain in Homer in late August. Before those groups take action, the assembly is also creating a new permitting process for weather modification activity that could be enacted as soon as next month.

Rainmaker Technology Corporation, a California-based tech company, kicked off much social media consternation last month when it announced that it had produced 19 million gallons of “net-new” rainfall in Homer over three hours on Aug. 23. Its process involves the use of silver iodide — in this case roughly 13 ounces — to cause water molecules in clouds to become precipitation like rain. Silver iodide can induce freezing, because its chemical structure resembles that of ice, drawing moisture from the cloud and then falling to earth.

The company had obtained approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly drones in the area, but hadn’t obtained or requested any other approvals to conduct experiments in the area, nor had it notified local residents of the activity. It did notify the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and Cook Inlet Region Inc. that it would be working over state and Native Corporation land, according to Rainmaker CEO Augustus Doricko.

Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche, who sponsored Tuesday’s legislation, said that a “missing body of state and federal law” allowed Rainmaker to operate without reasonable disclosure or notification.

“I did not get the opportunity to represent my constituents,” he said. “I’m not okay with it. They weren’t required to tell us about it.”

The FAA regulates the flight of the drones, Micciche said, but isn’t concerned with their activity or payload. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collects data after the fact. There is currently no legal requirement for Rainmaker to report or notice its activity, and Micciche said Rainmaker wasn’t forthcoming with information about what it planned to do on the peninsula. He characterized the assembly’s moves this week as supporting an effort to create a regulatory framework to meet rapidly evolving technology.

“This is our first real experience here, and maybe that’s how we often make laws,” he said. “We first have the experience, and we recognize maybe a little regulation would be nice.”

A resolution adopted by the assembly Tuesday calls on the Alaska Legislature to consider legislation either banning weather modification or establishing notice, permitting and regulatory requirements. It also calls on the state’s federal delegation to explore federal legislation to “strengthen notice, reporting, and approval requirements prior to the activities taking place.”

Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, who represents Homer and the Southern Kenai Peninsula in the state legislature, said Tuesday that she’s already drafted a bill that could be introduced during the next legislative session to target weather modification. She has been vocal on social media in expressing her indignation about Rainmaker’s failure to notify residents, including her constituents, about the test.

“For the most part, the public feel that this was too far without their consent,” Vance said in testimony to the assembly. “This was a violation in their mind, and so I’m going to continue to work on this issue.”

The assembly also heard testimony in support of the legislation from two Anchor Point residents who said they didn’t trust Rainmaker to take responsibility for any damage it may cause in using the borough as a testing ground.

An ordinance, introduced Tuesday and set for action during the assembly’s Oct. 15 meeting, would establish a new section of borough code requiring a new permit for the use of borough land to conduct weather modification or geoengineering. An application for the proposed permit would need to outline what chemicals will be used and in what quantity. The permit would also require a variety of details about the number of flights, frequency of operations and predicted impacted area.

Operators would also be required to complete a “confirmation summary statement” after completion of activities that provides documentation supporting the outline from the initial permit. An organization that fails to provide the “required closeout information” would be fined $1,000 per day and banned from applying for any commercial lease or land use permit for five years.

The resolution was unanimously adopted, and the ordinance unanimously introduced via the assembly’s consent agenda with little discussion from assembly members. Every member of the assembly present during Tuesday’s meeting signed onto the resolution as a cosponsor.

Data center dissent

Rainmaker wasn’t the only tech company drawing opposition during Tuesday’s meeting. An open public testimony window towards the start of the meeting was dominated by calls for the borough to oppose a 100-megawatt data center proposed for construction in Cook Inlet, just off the shore of Nikiski.

That project, called DeepGreen Cook Inlet, comes from a Massachusetts company and suggests the use of underwater turbines to both power and cool a network of servers. Developers are currently seeking approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and testifiers called Tuesday for the borough government to intervene in that process.

Colby Ingstrom, director of the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Conservation Alliance and a Nikiski commercial setnetter, said that the proposal fails to account for the way the Cook Inlet’s tides have multiple zero velocity periods per day — times at which the turbines both powering and cooling the data center would be ineffective. He and another angler also said the proposal doesn’t account for the possible impacts to local salmon stocks, which have been challenged in recent years, or the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale population.

“When slack tide hits, water circulation stops,” Ingstrom said. “The entire passive cooling system that DeepGreen is depending on to keep those 66 underwater data center pods from overheating shuts down completely. 100 megawatts of computing heat has nowhere to go. Superheated water accumulates across the entirety of the 1,600 acre footprint that is proposed.”

Though testifiers Tuesday asked the borough to intervene in the FERC proceeding, the borough had already filed to the case last week, writing in a motion to intervene that the borough doesn’t have a position on the project “at this stage” but that additional technical data and information about environmental and cultural impacts are necessary. The borough seeks in the filing “to ensure that it receives sufficient notice and is afforded the opportunity to comment, as necessary, regarding the project as more details about the project become available.”

Micciche said Tuesday that the borough hadn’t been properly notified of the development, as the East Coast developers initially considered only the City of Kenai as an affected community, but said the borough is aware of the proposal, “will read every filing” and will take action as necessary.

That said, Micciche said Tuesday that he’s seen dozens of proposals from Outside companies come and go as they learn about the unique challenges posed by Cook Inlet.

“I’m not going to lose sleep about DeepGreen because the probability of it occurring is essentially zero,” he said. “As FERC demands different pieces of data, if it’s insufficient, we will absolutely engage in this project.”

A full recording of Tuesday’s meeting and the text of the resolution and ordinance can be found on the KPB website.