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<br />SIERI~..\ ECOLOGY PROJECT <br /> <br />by <br />Dr. James 1. ~i th <br />U. S. Forest Service <br /> <br />It's a real pleasure to look around here and see some of the or1g1llators <br />of all of this. Chuck Cooper's report got me into an impossible situa- <br />tion. If you t...lJ.ink it's diff icul t to deteroine _how JIUlch water you are <br />gettL,g out of a cloud, it's infinitely more difficult to determine <br />whether or not you are really doing anything to parts of the environment. <br />Thank you very much, Chuck. This is a fantastic assessment of the en- <br />viromnental :impact on snow augn.entation in the Sierra Nevada of California <br />and we have followed very carefully and very-closely ~he projects which <br />Clmck and J:1is co-workers suggested be evaluated as far as the ecology and <br />the environ1Jlent are concerned. <br /> <br />Weather modification is being used increasingly in an effort to augment <br />precipitation in less-than-normal years. Any asseSSI1ent of the impact <br />of weather modification upon the ecology of the Sierra Nevada nn.Ist con- <br />_ sider the varied climatic regimes of the area. These differences include <br />year-to-year variance in precipitation, temperature, snm...packs, and soil <br />\'ia ter . <br /> <br />The Office of Atmospheric Resources !/.I8.nagement, Bureau of Reclamation, <br />U. S. Department of the Interior, has begtm a 7- to lO-year pilot study <br />of snm'i-pack augmentation in the Sierra Nevada. <l>jectives of the study <br />include evaluation of the am01.IDt of "new-l' water obtained by weather modi- <br />fication, and an evaluation of the effect of the augmented snow-pack and <br />precipitation reg:ime upon the hydrology and ecology of the American River <br />Basin. Snm~" hydrology and ecology studies for this program are being <br />done by the Fnvironmental Hydrology Research Unit of the Pacific Southwest <br />Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Service, U. S. Department of <br />1\,.oriculture, 1.IDder a cooperative agreement with Reclamation. <br /> <br />-15- <br />