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<br />Reclamation provided technical and scientific guidance required to build a solid data base for <br />this and future programs. <br /> <br />Tennessee Valley Authority (TV A) Cooperative Program - Prompted by the severe drought <br />in the Southeast United States during 1986, a cooperative project between Reclamation and <br />the TV A was established to investigate the feasibility of implementing a precipitation <br />enhancement program in the TV A region to better meet river operation requirements including <br />navigation, minimum flows and hydropower generation. The cooperative program consists of <br />three phases: 1) meteorological and hydrological studies to determine the scientific and <br />economic feasibility of cloud seeding over the TV A region using existing data bases, 2) an <br />exploratory field phase to determine cloud properties for developing and refining seeding <br />hypotheses and 3) a demonstration program to quantify the water augmentation potential of <br />an operational cloud seeding program. The three-phase approach was adopted to allow the <br />TV A to decide on the basis of increasingly greater evidence and decreasing risk levels whether <br />further investment of increasing magnitude in the program is in their best interests. <br /> <br />Phase 1 of the program has been completed. These studies suggested that a seasonal increase <br />in precipitation from 3 to 9 percent was possible and that, in turn, would result in a <br />benefit-cost ratio of 3.6 to 6.5. All other factors being equal, these results indicated that <br />implementation of Phase 2 is warranted. <br /> <br />Arizona Snowpack Augmentation Program (ASAP) - Starting early in 1987, Reclamation <br />initiated an exploratory observational program in the Mogollon Rim Region of Arizona. The <br />purpose of this program is to examine the suitability of winter clouds for possible future <br />weather modification activities, through cloud seeding, aimed at enhancing the winter <br />precipitation on Arizona's high plateau region. <br /> <br />Colorado River Enhanced Snowpack Test (CREST) - CREST is a proposed 8-year <br />demonstration program to confmn the capability of cloud seeding to augment the natural flow <br />of the Colorado River by means of a safe and reliable technology. CREST is designed to <br />address all aspects of precipitation management through cloud seeding and provide the <br />technical and socioeconomic information upon which a Basinwide operational cloud seeding <br />program can be based. The objectives of CREST are to 1) produce additional water in two <br />representative sub-basins, 2) quantify the precipitation and runoff increases that could be <br />produced Basinwide, 3) develop seeding procedures that are most cost-effective for the cloud <br />characteristics and topography of all high yield areas in the Basin, 4) assess the potential <br />impacts, if any, on the environment and downwind precipitation, 5) establish operational <br />suspension criteria that minimize the risks of cloud seeding while maximizing seeding <br />opportunities and resulting water production, and 6) determine the benefit-to-cost ratio of the <br />resulting Basinwide operational cloud seeding program. It is estimated that each year of the <br />demonstration program during which seeding is conducted, 410,000 acre feet of watc::r will be <br />produced. Operational application of this technology in the entire Basin is estimated to <br />produce an average of 2.26 million acre feet of additional water annually which would provide <br />benefits of $144 million from increased hydroelectric power production, salinity reduction <br />and additional water supplies. <br /> <br />7 <br />