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and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, is conducting a detailed field program to identify the snow and climate characteristics related to initiation of avalanches with the objective of developing avalanche forecasting techniques. The ecological aspects of the pilot project are a cooperative effort of Colorado State University, the University of Colorado, and Fort Lewis College. The general objective is to determine relationships between snow characteristics, such as depth-, water content and duration, and selected ecological systems, communities, or processes in both forest and alpine ecosystems. For the forest ecosystem the following studies are being carried on: herbaceous phenology, tree phenology, tree phytosociology, tree biomass, tree moisture stress, forest small mam- mals, elk, silver disposition, and silver environmental effects. For the alpine ecosystem the studies include: primary producers, geomor- phic processes, alpine small mammals, boreal toads, ecological over- view, dendrochronology, and historical climatology. < .. Results to Date Evaluation of the seeding results and related costs of the pilot project is being carried out by Aerometric Research, Inc. The work will include meteorological, engineering, and statistical analysis of the data col- lected and reports prepared by both EG&G, Inc., and Western Scientific Services, Inc., (WSSI) the primary data collector on the project. The basic evaluation data are the precipitation amounts occurring on experi- mental days. The Interim Progress Reports of the evaluation state that: ". · · the pilot effort of Proj ect Skywater of the Bureau of Reclamation seems to be accomplishing one major purpose: it is developing techniques for seeding only those storms from which additional snowfall may be obtainable without contrib- uting to avalanche hazard, excessive snow removal problems, or other inconveniences. In addition, the project appears to be sUPPQrtingthe basic premise that adding silver iodide crystals to a cloud can cause additional precipitation only if the cloud top is not too cold. ~ "Increases in precipitation are being studied on two different scales for the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project. For the basic purpose, demonstrating 'positive increases in snowfall over large areas of the San Juan ~lountains,' totals on treated (seeded) days must be compared with similar totals for control (unseeded) days. The original design of the experiment requires that such totals be for the entire 24-hour period, 11 a.m. to 11 a.m., regardless of the hours actually seeded or which would 14