Cloud Seeding and Rainy Days Bring Water to Dams

The 42 hours Cloud Seeding Operations (CSOs) to the watershed and agricultural areas in the province of Bohol have almost completed..Coupled with the intermittent rainfall from the usual weather vagaries have brought water to Bohol’s irrigation dams.

Leon Parac, Jr., cloud seeding focal person said that of the 42 hrs. CSOs contract, the Pegasus Air Services Inc., the winning bidder of the project had already consumed 33 hrs. for 20 sorties of CSOs as of July 13, 2019.

Parac said the operation was suspended for three days from Tuesday to Thursday and just resumed last Friday after the pilot could renew his license and the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) had granted the request of Junne P. Abejuela, Director of Marketing and Business Development, Pegasus Air Services Inc. to issue another permit for the operation after the first one was expired last July 10, 2019.

Captain Romel D. Candingan, Assistant Director-General II-FSIS has granted the letter request of Abejuela dated July 8, 2019 requesting to conduct Cloud Seeding operations over the vicinity of Bohol to utilize one Piper Cherokee type of aircraft with Registration No. RP-C2872.

CAAP CONDITIONS FOR SEEDING

The CAAP gave the following conditions to Pegasus Air Services Inc. in granting the request that must be conducted during VMC only, must be conducted from 11 July-10 August 2019 only, must be subject to Air Traffic Control, must be conducted at a maximum altitude of 8,500 ft. AGL only, must advise Mactan approach Control of the actual altitude to be flown in feet AMSL, must squawk on assigned transponder code when required by Mactan Approach Control, must advice Mactan Approach Control of the start and termination of said activity, must maintain continuous communication with Mactan Approach Control during the conduct of the activity.

Parac confirmed that due to CSOs which was started last June 8, 2019 several towns in Bohol have been experienced rainfalls that would add the water level of the major dams in the province.

He said that last week they conducted the survey and they found out that the dams have been releasing irrigation water to the service areas.

The cloud seeding focal person bared that as of July 10, 2019 the water elevation of Malinao Dam in Pilar was registered at 148.50 meters (ms.) against 150 ms. at full; Bayongan Dam in San Miguel had 44.52 ms. against 52 ms. at full; Capayas Dam in Ubay at 33.51 ms. and 36.5 at full; and the Talibon Dam in San Pascual, Talibon had 25 ms. against 30 ms. at full.

Parac said the Boholano farmers now have been very busy of the land preparation and rice planting in irrigated and rainfed areas on this wet cropping season. (WITH REPORT FROM Atoy Cosap)