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<br />Agencies and Programs <br /> <br />This section provides a description of the agencies that have, currently do, or may <br />participate in WxMod activities. For those agencies that do have ongoing programs, the <br />program is briefly described. <br /> <br />Bureau of Reclamation. The need for additional water in the Colorado River Basin has <br />been recognized and studied for many years. As stated above, the Secretary through the <br />Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) is specifically charged with the responsibility for <br />development of the water resources of the Colorado River Basin. Reclamation has the <br />longest history of any Federal agency in WxMod research, dating back to the 1960s. A <br />number of options have been considered to provide additional water supplies for the <br />Colorado River Basin. These options include importation, desalination, evaporation <br />suppression, vegetation management, and precipitation management (weather <br />modification by cloud seeding). Of all the options, precipitation management appears to <br />be one of the most cost effective and economical means of providing additional fresh <br />water supplies. Cloud seeding technology, when properly applied, appears to have the <br />potential to increase winter snowpack in the mountainous areas ofthe Colorado River <br />Basin (U.S. Department of the Interior (DOl), 1993). <br /> <br />Weather Damal!e Modification Program (WDMP). WxMod research has been in <br />significant decline since the 1980s. This decline was briefly inteIIUpted in fiscal year <br />2002, when Congress authorized funding of the WDMP and specified that it be <br />administered by Reclamation. The primary goal of the program is to "improve and <br />evaluate the physical mechanisms... and to enhance water supplies through regional <br />weather modification programs..." There was no funding for this program beyond fiscal <br />year 2003. In order to participate, states were expected to match federal funding and <br />piggy-back their research on existing operational weather modification projects. The <br />WDMP received a total of $2 million in federal funds over two years and some <br />significant research has been accomplished by the seven states involved. The program <br />provides an excellent model of federal/state collaboration and funds - leveraging that can <br />apply to the national cooperative federal and state program proposed in the House and <br />Senate (see above). <br /> <br />The individuals managing this program presented a paper at the January 2005, 161h <br />Symposium on Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification at the 8Slh American <br />Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in San Diego (Symposium). They expect the <br />WDMP to conclude in early 2006 in the absence of further funding, from either federal <br />sources or non-federal partners. Final reports from three WDMP states have been <br />completed and are available from Reclamation. A copy of the four page paper (Hunter, <br />2005) given at the Symposium may be found in Appendix A. <br /> <br />Colorado River Enhanced Snowoack Test (CRESTI. The CREST was planned to <br />operate for eight years but was not implemented because of declining federal support of <br />WxMod research and some wet years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The program <br />was designed to significantly improve the scientific basis for increasing winter mountain <br /> <br />-6- <br />