Whose Rain?

One Richard Haman, a ranch manager, last week filed a formal claim to the water in all the clouds passing over his 12,000-acre Rocking F Ranch near Reno. He was not cloud-cuckoo-land-crazy. He intends, he explained, to sprinkle dry ice on some of the clouds, and he wants full title to the rain he may bring down, wherever it falls.

Haman may not win his claim on the clouds as private property, but his maneuver may help to solve a legal puzzle. In many arid regions, such as the U.S. Southwest, rain falls spottily, bringing good crops to some areas and drought to others nearby. Rainmaking with dry ice dropped from airplanes may change the distribution--perhaps in the Rocking F Ranch's favor.

Then what will the thirsty neighbors do? Have they a right to sue the dry-ice man? Or must they all get airplanes and try to bring down their own clouds? Thus far, neither the Federal Government nor any state has passed laws to regulate man-made rain.

This odd legal vacuum, caused by science, affects much more than the squabbles of dry-land farmers. The General Electric Co., which developed scientific rainmaking, has stopped all outdoor experimenting. G.E. lawyers get the horrors when they think of what might happen to the company if one of its planes made a dry-ice-sprinkling flight just before a cloudburst. They might be drowned in damage suits for years. Even the Army & Navy have been jumpy since they were accused of "meddling" with dry ice and herding a hurricane toward Georgia (TIME, Nov. 10).

Future developments in the technique of precipitating clouds may enable weather scientists to control the climate of whole countries, or even continents. "But," says Dr. C. Guy Suits, General Electric's director of research, "until the legal problems are clarified, there will be great difficulty in carrying out large-scale experimentation." Dr. Suits's suggested remedy: a central organization patterned along the lines of the Atomic Energy Commission. With rainmaking control on a national scale, he thinks, a drought-stricken part of the country could be given real rain relief.

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