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<br />000099 <br /> <br />I. Purpose ,and Need <br /> <br />This Environmental Assessment has been prepared in compliance with the <br />National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (Public Law 91-190) to accompany a <br />legislative proposal to design and conduct a limited duration demonstration <br />cloud seeding program in the Colorado River Basin. The program would be a <br />part of the Bureau of Reclamation's atmospheric resources research program, <br />also known as Project Skywater. <br /> <br />Public planning and pOlicy decisions have recognized that the existing water <br />yield of the CRB (Colorado River Basin) will not be sufficient to meet the <br />future demands of the Basin's beneficiaries. Severe shortages within two <br />decades have been predicted. This problem was analyzed in the 1975 Westwide <br />Study [1]*. Future categories of demands upon the Basin are well defined. <br />Significant population increases; a need for additional hydroelectric power; <br />increased industrial and irrigation demands; reservoir and streamflow main- <br />tenance requirements for fishery, wildlife, and recreation uses; and water <br />quality and salinity reduction obligations cannot be avoided. Moreover, a <br />major expansion of coal, oil shale, and petroleum resource development may <br />occur whenever extrinsic market factors are favorable. In addition to <br />in-Basin demands from the headwaters to Los Angeles, the Colorado River <br />must supply water to Mexico under international treaty (Treaty series 994" <br />59 Stat. 1219). <br /> <br />The potential for cloud seeding technology to meet these needs has been <br />modeled by using the results of the Twelve Basin Study [2] as input to the <br />Bureau of Reclamation's CRSS (Colorado River Simulation System) model. CRSS <br />uses both modified and unmodified historical streamf1ows, and the resulting <br />differences are examined in terms of water shortages, salinity reductions, <br />international agreements with Mexico, reservoir response, hydroelectric power <br />production, and economic benefit [3]. <br /> <br />The Secretary of the Interior is required to plan for augmentation of exist- <br />ing CRB water yield by Public Law 90-537, the Colorado River Basin Project <br />Act of 1968, and by Public Law 93-20, the Colorado River Basin Salinity <br />Control Act. Cloud seeding to increase precipitation, runoff, and water <br />yield in the CRB is one of the alternatives available to the Secretary. <br />CREST (the Colorado River Enhanced Snowpack Test) is intended as a test of <br />the feasibility of the use of the technology in the CRB. <br /> <br />According to Council on Environmental Quality regulations, the Department of <br />the Interior Manual, and Reclamation Instructions, material readily available <br />in the Project Skywater Programmatic FES (Final Environmental Statement) [4] <br />and other publiShed reports will be included by reference in certain sections <br />of this document. <br /> <br />* Numbers in brackets refer to references at the end of this report. <br /> <br />1 <br /> <br />------- .. <br />-=_.::-_:-:_:-_-=~:-'_=-,-=--=--=--":~--~---------- --- _.- _. - - .- -------~ <br />