Even as wildlife managers were feeding mule deer deprived of grazing land by monstrous snow drifts in the Gunnison Basin, clouds were being seeded to bring more precipitation in another part of the county.
In the southern part of the basin around Slumgullion Pass and other areas, the snowpack hasn’t been deep enough to cut off the seeding project, said Joe Busto, a staffer on the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s watershed-protection and flood-mitigation section.
“They have had but three seeding events since the end of January. They were operating in the south and stayed away from other areas,” Busto said.
But public concern over wildlife and snow removal halted the seeding as of Monday.
The seeding program helps boost the watershed and snowpack in an area that depends heavily on outdoor recreation to feed its economy, said Jane Wyman, Gunnison County weather-modification coordinator.
The Crested Butte ski resort accounts for much of the county’s tourism revenue.
The snow seeding program in Crested Butte and other northern areas of the county was stopped more than a month ago when winter storms boosted the snowpack and led to avalanche warnings.
Twenty-three generators in the county are used to shoot silver iodide into clouds and stimulate formation of ice crystals. A contractor, North American Weather Consultants, operates the generators for Gunnison County, Crested Butte Mountain Resort, the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District and the Gunnison County Stockgrowers Association.
The contractor decides when to run the generators but has to follow regulations — including mandatory cutoff limits when snow is too deep — set by the state Water Conservation Board.
The Division of Wildlife is feeding about 5,000 deer and 630 pronghorn in a program that already has cost $400,000 on the way to what probably will be an eventual $1 million price tag.
“We haven’t paid attention to the cloud-seeding operation. We deal with what is on the ground,” said Division of Wildlife spokesman Joe Lewandowski.
The Colorado Wildlife Commission also has authorized wildlife managers in the upper Eagle Valley to conduct a limited deer-feeding operation.
Feed for that operation is likely to cost more than $120,000.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
