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Letter to Prime Minister Gorton in relation to cloud seeding for drought management
[Letterhead in blue ink for ‘PREMIER’S DEPARTMENT’, ‘BRISBANE. B. 7.’, with the coat of arms of Queensland at the top of the page.]
[Handwritten in top left corner in pencil:] 66/2448
[Handwritten at top of page in pencil:] PA
[Handwritten in top right corner in blue ink:] 39.
[Handwritten annotation in blue ink at top of page:]
Sec [Secretary]
For action from Min [Minister] in charge CSIRO please.
AGG
18/1
[End annotation.]
[Stamped ’15 JAN 1970’, ‘PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE’.]
[Stamped ‘RECEIVED’, ’16 JAN 1970’, department name illegible.]
12th January, 1970
My dear Prime Minister,
A three month cloud-seeding operation was conducted by my Government between 15th September and 14th December, 1969, in an effort to alleviate the most serious drought so far experienced in this State. The advice and assistance rendered by C.S.I.R.O in connection with the project is gratefully acknowledged.
Since no conclusive cloud-seeding research has been conducted in Queensland to provide a reliable measure of potential benefits to be expected in northern latitudes from continuous cloud-seeding, it is only in extreme circumstances such as drought that Government expenditure on cloud-seeding here can be justified.
In undertaking this project we were aware of the fact that from the data available cloud-seeding during drought is unlikely to have a significant broad area effect in breaking the drought but a desperate situation often justifies the adoption of any measures which have a hope of success.
In this operation it was not possible to assess results on a quantitative basis but it is the opinion of participating officers, based on their independent observations, that useful falls of rain occurred on various occasions in consequence of cloud-seeding.
My Government remains extremely interested in cloud-seeding as a possible means of increasing rainfall within given areas and over a continuing period of time and we are fully conscious of the far-reaching benefits to be anticipated from even comparatively small increases in seasonal rainfall in many parts of Queensland.
It is realised that the current C.S.I.R.O. experiment in Tasmania may eventually help to clarify the role of cloud-seeding generally but, because of different meteorological conditions, it is felt that Tasmanian results could not fairly be extrapolated to most of Queensland.
../2
[Addressed to:] The Right Honourable the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth,
CANBERRA. [Underlined] A.C.T. 2600.
[Illegible handwritten initials, dated:] 15/1
[Page] 2.
Cloud-seeding experiments conducted by C.S.I.R.O. in parts of New South Wales and Victoria are claimed to have produced statistically valid increases in rainfall but a similar experiment commenced several years ago in south-eastern Queensland was unfortunately suspended because of operational problems before any conclusive results were obtained. If anything, the results appeared to indicate that there had been a decrease in rainfall as a consequence of cloud-seeding operations.
In a C.S.I.R.O. report to the Standing Committee on Agriculture dated 6th January, 1967, in which “possibly favourable” areas for cloud-seeding were defined, it was indicated that “it is likely that suitable conditions also occur over large parts of western and northern Australia. However, no experiments have been carried out in these regions and further investigations would be necessary before their potential can be assessed”.
