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<br />corresponds to costs of $6 to 12 per acre-foot. Chemical analysis of partitioned snow <br />profiles are used routinely to determine the effectiveness of targeting. Results have <br />shown a significant increase in the percent of time (over the past decade) that seeding <br />material is detected in the snowpack. Recent research through the federal cooperative <br />programs has focused on refining these techniques to allow for quantifying augmentation <br />estimates over a basin-wide area. <br /> <br />Wyoming <br /> <br />In 2005, the Wyoming legislature approved nearly $9 million for a five-year WxMod <br />pilot program. The program is administered by the state Water Development <br />Commission and is intended to increase snowpack and runoff through winter cloud <br />seeding within the Green River, Wind RiverlBighorn, and Platte River Basins. The <br />program includes a thorough independent evaluation of effects. The expenditures are <br />significantly greater than any other existing WxMod program in the United States. <br />Aircraft and ground-based seeding will be conducted, along with numerical cloud <br />modeling physical sampling, in accordance with recommendations of the NRC report. <br />The first field studies will likely begin in the winter of2006-2007. <br /> <br />New Mexico <br /> <br />Responsibility for Cloud Seeding was transferred to the New Mexico Interstate Stream <br />Commission in 2003 and licensing rules were adopted in 2004. The New Mexico <br />Weather Modification Association, Inc was founded in 2004 to promote precipitation <br />augmentation projects, research, and education. It works very closely with the Interstate <br />Stream Commission to advance economically justified cloud seeding projects. Cloud <br />seeding activity currently consists of summer seeding in Roosevelt and Lea Counties. <br />This seeding is an extension of a Texas project, the Southern Ogallala Aquifer Rain <br />(SOAR) Program. <br /> <br />An appropriation request is planned to be submitted to the New Mexico Legislature to <br />fund a three-year winter seeding demonstration project in the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo <br />Mountains. This will benefit water rights holders in parts of Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, and <br />Taos counties and some water flowing off the Jemez south of the Otowi Gauge will <br />benefit the entire Middle Rio Grande Valley. The recently prepared Regional Water <br />Plans indicate that there will substantial growth in water demand by municipalities along <br />the Rio Grande. Consideration is also being given by the New Mexico Weather <br />Modification Association to summer seeding in the Guadalupe mountains and perhaps <br />winter or summer seeding in the Sacramento Mountains. There is a summer seeding <br />project in the Texas Guadalupe Mountains. New Mexico is very interested in <br />cooperating with projects in neighboring states and in developing project planning and <br />assessment capabilities within the New Mexico University System. <br /> <br />-16- <br />