Page 121 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

Provaqua

If Charles Hatfield were active today, he might be working for Earthwise Tech-
nologies, trying to peddle the company’s ion rain project. Unsung heroes often
emerge, however, to expose the charlatans and to contest unsupportable claims.
Richard “Heatwave” Berler, a television weatherman in Laredo, Texas, deserves
to receive a journalism award for using moments stolen from his nightly weath-
ercast to confront the charlatans and reveal the madness. In late November
2003, in response to an unsolicited proposal, the Webb County Commissioners
Court issued a contract to Earthwise Technologies for rainmaking in the vicin-
ity of Laredo. The project, called Provaqua, involved building four large ion-
generating rain towers spanning the Rio Grande watershed at a cost of up to $5
million. Webb County taxpayers were asked to pay $1.2 million, with the balance
coming from Mexico.
Earthwise, a sole proprietorship operating out of Dallas, Texas, was promot-
ing an unproven Russian technology known as IoLA (ionization of the local
areas). Three years earlier, the company—or, more accurately, Steven Howard, its
president and sole employee—made an unsuccessful bid to install up to twenty-
five “ionization platforms” in the Houston–Galveston area, a heavily populated
region and, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, a non-attain-
ment area for air pollution. For a fee of $25 million a year, he offered to clear
the region’s air of particulate matter and reduce concentrations of ozone near
the ground. According to Howard, the company’s patented IoLA technology
would create an ascending “convection chimney” to draw in polluted air and dis-
perse pollutants more rapidly and at greater heights than occurs naturally. Much
like a giant home air purifier, Howard explained, the devices would help precipi-
tate heavier particles and could mitigate the formation of ground-level ozone.
The Laredo project claimed to be able to harness and redirect natural atmo-
spheric energy processes in the Earth’s hydrological cycle. According to How-
ard, clouds were not necessary to produce rain. Ions floating up from the tall
electrified towers that his company proposed to erect would cling to humidity
in the air, generating clouds and producing a slow, gentle rain. The ions would
also attract new “aerial rivers of moisture” from the Gulf of Mexico and would
disperse pollution and freshen and purify the air. In a presentation to the com-
missioners court, Howard further explained that IoLA “changes the electrical
charge of water vapor, thereby speeding up the natural velocity of condensation.”
Earthwise offered to generate a 15 to 20 percent minimum increase in measur-
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able rainfall, with a maximum 300 percent increase. Local TV channel KGNS

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