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► Field operations management and oversight <br />► Limited weather forecasting using modeling and weather service collected weather data <br />► Weather and cloud information monitoring in the Headwaters Region and surrounding area <br />' ► Simplified daily operational plan formulation and relay to project personnel and management <br />► Field equipment operation to conduct cloud seeding and collect scheduled data <br />► Field data collection, preliminary quality checking and archiving <br />► Limited automated data analysis <br />► Equipment maintenance <br />► Environmental compliance and public awareness maintenance <br />' 4.3. Seeding Operations and Data Collection <br />' The design phase will produce the computer software that is used to conduct the operational cloud <br />seeding. Based on established criteria, the software will determine if conditions are met for seeding and <br />proceed to instruct field equipment to initiate cloud treatment. The software will verify that equipment <br />has responded and continue to report the status of operations. <br />Data collection during the operational phase will be determined at the completion of the design phase. It <br />' is expected that in addition to data collected at the seeding sites, some data will continually be obtained <br />from several instrumented towers installed at high elevations of the Headwaters Region main barriers. <br />Data from these towers will be used to assist in determining seeding conditions. It may be necessary for <br />' environmental compliance and seeding criteria performance checks that some meteorological data be <br />continually collected. Periodic data collection can provide confidence that clouds are being seeded and <br />that results indicated in precipitation data are caused by cloud treatment. The data collection issue for the <br />' operational phase must be viewed in light of cloud modeling accuracy and, of course, design phase field <br />tests. <br />' 4.4. Estimation of Operational Seeding Costs <br />Section 4.2 lists some of the prominent tasks of conducting operational cloud seeding. Each task will <br />require costly resources for accomplishment. Other costs include those for annual seeding materials that <br />for propane release are estimated at about $175,000 per season. Table 4.1 gives year -by -year operational <br />project costs for a 10 -year seeding period. Yearly cost estimates beyond the first year include a 3 percent <br />inflation factor. Table 4.1 lists annual costs for seeding equipment installation and removal. All other <br />costs are combined into a single table value for each operational field season. A more detailed account of <br />operational costs for the first year of seeding is given in Table 4.2. Upon completion of the design phase, <br />a revised set of operational costs will be developed for each program component. <br />The first -year operational cost is estimated at $1,025,000, and the cost for the tenth year is $1,330,000. <br />Table 4.2 shows a l0 -year cost of operations of $11,716,000. Assuming 55 cloud treatment devices are <br />installed in the Headwaters Region, the average annual cost of operations per seeding device is $21,300. <br />This figure includes costs for seeding materials, automatic data collection, annual data analysis, <br />' operational cloud seeding, equipment removal (when necessary) and maintenance, weather forecasting <br />and monitoring, cloud modeling, periodic evaluation of seeding results, project management and <br />oversight, environmental compliance, and public involvement. Data costs for environmental compliance <br />' are included in technician support costs. Estimates cannot be met if automation is not fully implemented. <br />Costs do not include any observations by aircraft, or local scanning radar. Partnering with other agencies <br />and groups will be pursued and may help maintain costs at manageable levels. The figures given do not <br />' assume annual assistance from partnering. <br />21 <br />