We have begun our day with a few subjects, ranging from the concept of the kobayashi maru exercise and politics, to the value of independent thought and questioning, to challenging status quo and “how we’ve always done it/thought about it”, to cloud seeding.
Warm seeding

Cold seeding

The question we now have is, if the water molecules wrap themselves around the silver particles, or the salt particles, what happens to the silver and salt once the water/snow hits the ground and either evaporates or melts. Is there something left over then sitting on the ground (or wherever the snow/raindrop landed)?
Our search, “Side effects of cloud seeding”, turned up the first page and article referenced below, which concludes that there is no measurable amount of silver that exceeds what could be expected to occur naturally, even in areas frequently seeded, and for long periods of time.
So, the next question is, how is it possible that using silver to seed a cloud does not result in a higher level of silver hitting the ground/filling lakes, etc..  To answer this, we searched, “negative effects of cloud seeding”, and the following was discovered: This group, much as the other organization mentioned above, presented their “factinion” in a very biased manner. Where the first group says there is no harm and nothing to be concerned about, the second group says there is harm and everything to be worried about. Neither published article seems to present a fact based statement that isn’t being spun. So, we’ll try a third… 

Here’s the third:

Cloud seeding leaves skies clear, but lasting effects remain hazy

Yet this chemical is being injected into our clouds to create drops that fall to the ground. The chemically engulfed drops fall on deserts, lakes, rivers, the crops we eat and the mountain ranges we get our drinking water from.
Silver iodide has proven to be highly toxic in high doses, as part of the compound is the most toxic heavy metal; silver.
A 1970 study by the University of Michigan did extensive tests on silver build-up in various organisms and environments. Testing on fish showed that silver only materialized on specific areas of the fish, on and around its gills. Yet the most drastic effect has been seen with microorganisms. When tested, they developed silver tracts within their vital living systems.
The tests of drinking water confirmed the presence of silver in areas which used cloud seeding. Such “contamination” has resulted  in health regulation by the EPA that allows only a certain amount of silver to be considered non-threatening.
Though it is enough to kill a small fish, we are assured that over a 27-year period of being exposed to this water, humans are not likely to develop argyria.
Cloud seeding programs are all over the U.S. With Texas leading the way, many other states trail just behind including Utah, Colorado, Nevada and California. California officials have expressed the benefit of cloud seeding in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The silver iodide for that mountain range is released from the ground, whereas many traditionally inject the vapor via jet or rocket.
The vapor reportedly gets blown up into the clouds, and half an hour later snow begins to fall.
All of this claims to be harmless, but contemporary testing is sparse. By living in a state where they practice this system of weather modification, essentially it’s being tested on us. The only way we’ll know if these levels of silver in our snow, water, food and air have long-term effects is by living them.
And while potentially harmless, it’s still a troubling notion to be something of a test subject.
 

 
http://www.weathermodification.org/images/AGI_toxicity.pdf
WEATHER MODIFICATION ASSOCIATION (WMA) POSITION STATEMENT ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF USING SILVER IODIDE AS A CLOUD SEEDING AGENT JULY 2009
Silver Iodide is considered water insoluble (solubility constant at 10-9 g[of Ag] g -1 [of solventwater]; see units note), which means that if one gram of the chemical is added to one gram of water, roughly one billionth of that gram of silver iodide would dissolve in to the water; the remainder will stay in the water undissolved.
Silver iodide, as used in cloud seeding, is either dissolved in a flammable solution or combined with other flammable solids to produce seeding flares or other devices, which are burned to release submicron-sized, virtually invisible, silver iodide aerosol complexes into the atmosphere.
Why is there concern about using silver iodide in cloud seeding? It is well established that silver in some forms can be toxic to lower organisms without being toxic to higher animals (Kotrba 1968). Numerous controlled laboratory studies have shown that silver, silver nitrate and even silver iodide when added to laboratory aquariums, even at trace levels, can be toxic to some fish and other aquatic life when exposed over long time periods; the toxicity is related to specific compounds, concentrations and other factors such as water hardness, etc (e.g., Davies & Goettl 1978)
The U.S. Public Health Service established a concentration limit of 50 micrograms of silver per liter of water in public water supply to protect human health (e.g., Erdreich et al. 1985). The concentrations of silver potentially introduced by modern cloud seeding efforts are significantly less than this level. The literature embodies tens of thousands of samples collected from cloud seeding program areas over a thirty-year period showing the average concentration of silver in rainwater, snow and surface water samples is typically less than 0.01 micrograms per liter. More importantly, these measurements represent the total amount of silver contained in any given sample and are not specific to the form of silver present in a sample. Nevertheless, these measurements show that silver is virtually undetectable in any form in the vast majority of the tens of thousands of samples collected from these areas.
More than 100 Sierra Nevada lakes and rivers have been studied since the 1980’s (e.g., Stone 1986); no detectable silver above the natural background was found in seeded target area water bodies, precipitation and lake sediment samples, nor any evidence of silver accumulation after more than fifty years of continuous seeding operations (Stone 1995; Stone 2006).
Similarly, Sanchez et al. (1999) analyzed the chemistry of water bodies and rainwater from samples collected during a summer cloud seeding program in Spain, and determined the silver input from cloud seeding to be indistinguishable from natural inputs. Greek scientists studying the effects on soils, plants and their physiology, atmospheric precipitation, plankton, animals and man, as well as the impact of irrigation and organic matter to AgI leaching from the Greek cloud seeding activities found similar results following the analyses of 2500 soil samples (e.g., Tsiouris et al. 2002a; Tsiouris et al. 2002b).

http://www.ranches.org/cloudseedingharmful.htm
When studying the efficacy and consequences of cloud seeding experiments, the experimenters tend to be biased in saying cloud seeding with silver iodide enhances precipitation without negative consequences. However, much of the literature substantiates that not only does cloud seeding fail to achieve the desired effect, it also yields harmful consequences. Some of these consequences include rain suppression, flooding, tornadoes, and silver iodide toxicity. (1,2,3)
The harmful effects of silver iodide are insidious.(3) Yet, according to the web site of the PGCD, the effects are so minimized that the following is stated: “The concentration of iodide in iodized salt used on food is far above the concentration found in rainwater from a seeded cloud.”(4) In addition, in early December of 2002, at the Amarillo meeting jointly conducted by the Panhandle Groundwater and the North Plains Groundwater Conservation Districts, one representative stated that silver iodide was good for the heart. In a private conversation, another explained that silver miners live longer. Iodized salt may seem benign; however, some states such as Colorado have outlawed the use of salting icy roads.(5) Among harmful effects, salt is toxic to the water and land.(5)
According to the Colorado National Park Service and the Federal Remediation Technologies Roundtable, the result of cloud seeding with silver iodide and runoff have adverse effects on the water, soil, and flora and fauna. (7,9) “Elevated silver concentrations in biota occur in the vicinities of sewage outfalls, electroplating plants, mine waste sites, and silver iodide-seeded areas.”(12) In fact, in the 1980s the CDC had hoped that silver toxicity would be reduced nationally based on a reduction of cloud seeding activity.(13)
The question is not that is cloud seeding harmful, but how harmful. It is obvious that it is significantly harmful. So far, programs such as PGCD have not provided effective monitoring and sampling to demonstrate that the silver concentrations in the water and soil caused by cloud seeding are at “safe levels.” To test for silver in the water and soil, the methods are sophisticated and require the latest in technology, along with standards set by such agencies as the EPA.(7)Without such testing, such programs must be stopped immediately. There is too much at risk for their experimentation.

* The Kobayashi Maru scenario was an infamous no-win scenario that was part of the curriculum for command-track cadets at Starfleet Academy in the 23rd century. It was primarily used to assess a cadet’s discipline, character and command capabilities when facing an impossible situation, as there is no (legitimate) strategy that will result in a successful outcome.