WMOD00512

• Title: Special Report to the Commissioner - Precipitation Management for the Colorado River Basin
• Date: 1/1/1980
• State: CO
• Country: United States
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

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SECTION r. SUHXARY

This report presents a program to augment the Colorado River Basin
water supply by operational precipitation management. An opera-
tional program would begin in the San Juan subbasin in fiscal
year 1984. The program could expand to a Basinwide effort in
fiscal year 1989.

The San Juan operational program schedule includes a I-year Initia-
tion Phase to negotiate contracts, obtain equipment, and make field
installations; a 2-year Preoperational Phase to obtain field
verification of the operational procedures and modification hypo-
theses; and a 4- or 5-year Operational Phase beginning in the
1983-84 winter season (FY 1984) as indicated in figure 1. The
estimated cost of this core San Juan program is $40.38 million.

The San Juan Mountains are selected as the site of the core
project because: (1) more physical knowledge is understood about
storms and cloud seeding in that area, (2) continuing support for
small commercial cloud seeding projects in that area indicated
public acceptance for operational programs, (3) its contribution
to the total streamflow of the Upper Colorado River Basin is very
high, and (4) some environmental studies have been completed for
this area. A successful operational project in this area will
provide the basis for planning, design, and justification of
operational projects in other mountain regions of the Colorado
River Basin and elsewhere.

The project is designed to obtain maximum credibility for the
results and create minimum controversy in the region. Definite
results in terms of precipitation increases and derived stream-
flow must be established to maintain support of the Basin states
and other downstream users. The public must be convinced that
large operational mode cloud seeding programs can be established
in a socially acceptable manner, one that is compatible with the
environment and lifestyle of the region. Establishing credibil-
ity in these two areas will promote continued operations in
the San Juan subbasin and extension of precipitation management
to other subbasins of the Colorado River. The same equipment and
facilities would be available for continued operational use.

The Colorado River Basin would benefit from the San Juan Opera-
tional Cloud Seeding Project by an estimated 100 million m3
(81,000 acre-ft) of increased annual flow per year and the
Rio Grande by 49 million m3 (40,000 acre-ft) per year. Basin-
wide operational yields are expected to be 1.7 billion m3

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