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<br />SECTION VI. THE BASINWIDE OPERATIONAL PROGRAM <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />The operational augmentation program for the Colorado River Basin <br />will be designed to produce as much water as possible in the most <br />economical manner. To accomplish thi~ in addition to the San Juan, <br />seeding will be conducted in each of the Wind River, Uinta, Park <br />Range, Central Colorado, and Mogo11an regions of the Colorado River <br />Basin. Each of these areas will be instrumented for evaluation and <br />seeded by airborne or ground-based methods, or a combination of <br />both techniques. Emphasis will be placed on improving operational <br />effectiveness. Operational evaluation will be based on careful <br />measurements of precipitation and runoff. The final design will <br />depend on what is learned through the preoperational program and <br />the San Juan operational program. <br /> <br />The cost of an operational program is extremely difficult to pro- <br />ject because of the number of unknowns that must be resolved in <br />the San Juan operational program and their effect on the final <br />cost. Taking into account such unknowns as type of seeding and <br />season length, an initial cost estimate for the six subbasins is <br />between $S and $9 million annually. It is anticipated that this <br />expenditure should result in a significant economic benefit. <br /> <br />A preliminary estimate of benefits from an operational program in <br />just the five Upper Colorado River Basin high-yield areas was made <br />using the NAWC Twelve Basin Study and Water and Power's Colorado <br />River Simulation System (CRSS) model. The NAWC Study estimates <br />are subject to change with incorporation of more recent data. <br /> <br />The Twelve Basin Investigation, which is based on the 1952-197l <br />period resulted in an average augmentation potential of <br />l.6 billion m3 (1,315,000 acre-ft) per year or a 9.8 percent <br />increase over the computed average Virgin flow for the same period. <br />As seen in Table 4, increases ranged from a low of 116 million m3 <br />(940,000 acre-ft) in 1954 to a high of 2.5 billion m3 (2,052,000 <br />acre-ft) in 1952. The percentage increase ranged from 8.1 percent <br />in 1966 to 11.7 percent in 1956. In an operational program, <br />actual increases would probably be less than these values because <br />of suspensions. It is estimated that the average adjusted increase <br />would be about 1.5 billion m3 (1.2 million acre-ft) annually. <br /> <br />VI-l <br />