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2. Confirm the increases on a quantitative basis to establish the <br />augmentation potential of a basinwide operational program and <br />its resulting benefits, and to decide on the use and distribution <br />of the additional water supplies. <br />3. Assess the potential impacts on the environment and downwind <br />precipitation and to develop operational procedures that minimize <br />risks while maximizing seeding opportunities and their water - <br />production. <br />Confidence in our ability to attain these objectives is greatly strengthened <br />by recent advances in our knowledge of which clouds should and should <br />not be seeded and in the development of equipment and techniques for <br />recognizing seeding opportunities in real -time and reacting to them in <br />a timely manner with more effective seeding delivery systems. New develop- <br />ments in high performance aircraft with sophisticated cloud physics and <br />air- motion measurement systems, new and better remote sensing systems, and <br />remote, automatic meteorological stations make certain vital physical <br />parameters directly observable for the first time. We no longer have to <br />rely on indirect indices of seedable conditions, an approach which has <br />proved to be inefficient in past experiments. Advances in onsite processing <br />and display of field data provide the basis for implementing rapid response <br />opportunity recognition and reaction systems and timely evaluation of the <br />experimental results. In addition, it is now possible to reinforce the <br />statistical evaluation of the demonstration experiments by simultaneously <br />documenting the chain of physical events that lead to the additional <br />precipitation. The CREST program is based on this philosophy. <br />Numerous environmental studies have concluded that neither the additional <br />snowfall nor the seeding agent would adversely affect the ecology of <br />the areas as a result of short -term research or demonstration programs. <br />These studies also presented a preliminary survey of effects that might <br />occur if the technology were applied over very long periods of time. <br />The Bureau has prepared an environmental assessment covering the first <br />phase of CREST and determined that a finding of no significant impact was <br />appropriate. Environmental reporting requirements will be satisfied <br />before launching the phase two demonstration experiments. <br />4 <br />