WSPC02982

• File Number: 8200.700
• Description: Colorado River Basin General Publications - Augmentation-Weather Modification
• State: CO
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 2/1/1977
• Author: DOI-BOR
• Title: Status Report - Sierra Cooperative Pilot Project Design Program - With Excerpts from Weather Modification Design Study for Streamflow Augmentation in the Northern Sierra Nevada
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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Since then, the Department has been informed of progress in the
project and has assisted the Bureau by providing information
needed for project development.

In 1976, two other agencies of the State of California completed
studies on the likely social and environmental effects of incremental
increases in the high country snowpack on public transportation
and highways. The Department of California Highway Patrol, in
a two-part report to the Bureau, reviewed relationships between
snow storms and traffic accidents, emergency services, inconven-
ience t~ highway users, and specific effects upon the Highway
Patrol. As the result of this study, an additional controlled
research project was proposed in 1976 to develop more precise
information on effects of additional snowfall on the motoring
pUblic and the Department.

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) analyzed
possible effects generally in the mountain area above 1220 m (4000 ft)
including projections of maintenance costs related to storm severity,
avalanche contsol activities, road closures, and relationships to
publ ic safety.

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Also in 1976, Human Ecology Research Services, Boulder, Colorado,
surveyed individual citizens and organizational representatives
regarding their attitudes and concerns about the concept of igcreasing
water supplies by seeding winter clouds in the Sierra Nevada.

Scientists in the Bureau's Division of Atmospheric Water Resources
Management, also known as "Project Skywater," have been engaged
in analysis of meteorological and climatological conditions
affecting the Sierra Nevada as well as the design of environmental
and societal programs and research methodology since 1972. These
efforts are discussed in Section II of this report.

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4. California llepartment of Transportation (1976). "Data and Analysis
in the Planning for the Experimental Winter Weather Modification Program
in the Si erra Nevada," Sacramento.
5. Department of Cal ifornia Highway Patrol (1976). "Potential Impacts
of Weather Modification in the Sierra Nevada," Sacramento.
6. Farhar, Barbara C. and Ronald Rinkle (1976). "A Societal Assess-
ment of the Proposed Sierra Snowpack Augmentation Project," Human
Ecology Research Services, Boulder, Colorado (in pUblication).

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