WMOD00410

• Project Name: Sierra Cooperative Pilot Project
• Title: Sierra Cooperative Pilot Project - Operations Plan 1978-1979
• Date: 11/1/1978
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

In 1976, two other agenci es of the State of Cali forn i a completed
studies on the likely social and environmental effects of incremental

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increases in the high country snowpack on public transportation and

highways. The California Highway Patrol, in a two-part report to

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the Bureau, reviewed relationships between snowstorms and traffic

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accidents, emergency services, inconvenience to highway users, and

specific effects upon the Highway Patrol if.

The CALTRANS (California Department of Transportation) analyzed

possible effects, generally in the mountain area above 1220 m
(4000ft), including projections of maintenance costs related to

storm severity, avalanche control activities, road closures, and

relationships to public safety 2/.

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Also in 1976, Human Ecology Research Services, Boulder, Colorado,

surveyed individual citizens and organizational representatives

regarding their attitudes and concerns about the concept of increasing
water supplies by seeding winter clouds in the Sierra Nevada 6/.

4/ Department of California Highway Patrol, "Potential Impacts of
Weather Modification in the Sierra Nevada," Sacramento, 1976.
5/ California Department of Transportation, "Data and Analysis in
the Planning for the Experimental Winter Weather Modification
Program in the Sierra Nevada," Sacramento, 1976.
6/ Farhar, Barbara C. and Ronald Rinkle, "A Societal Assessment of the
Proposed Sierra Snowpack Augmentation Project," Human Ecology Research
Services, Boulder, Colorado, 1976.

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