61-04.1-03. Definitions

61-04.1-03. Definitions As used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires: 1. "Controller" refers to any licensee duly authorized in this state to engage in weather modification operations. 2. "Geographical region" means a geographical area with a contiguous boundary that may enclose a portion of any county or counties. 3. "Hail suppression" refers to the activation of any process that will reduce, modify, suppress, eliminate, or soften hail formed in clouds or storms. 4. "Increasing precipitation" refers to the activation of any process that will actually result in greater amounts of moisture reaching the ground in any area from a cloud or cloud system than would have occurred naturally. 5. "Initiating precipitation" refers to the process of causing precipitation from clouds which could not otherwise have occurred naturally or inducing precipitation significantly earlier than would have occurred naturally. 6. "Operation" means the performance of any weather modification activity undertaken for the purpose of producing or attempting to produce any form of modifying effect upon the weather within a limited geographical area or within a limited period of time. 7. "Research and development" means exploration, field experimentation, and extension of investigative findings and theories of a scientific or technical nature into practical application for experimental and demonstration purposes, including the experimental production of models, devices, equipment, materials, and processes. 8. "Weather modification" means and extends to the control, alteration, and amelioration of weather elements, including man-caused changes in the natural precipitation process, hail suppression or modification, and alteration of other weather phenomena, including clouds, temperature, wind direction, and velocity, and the initiating, increasing, decreasing, and otherwise modifying by artificial methods of precipitation in the form of rain, snow, hail, mist, or fog through cloud seeding, electrification, or by other means to provide immediate practical benefits. 9. "Weather modification authority" means the governing body created by a board of county commissioners under section 61-04.1-22.1, 61-04.1-23, 61-04.1-27, 61-04.1-29, or 61-04.1-31.