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<br />. <br /> <br />003215 <br /> <br />in budget before then. He said that WPRS is still working on the <br />document and that, in response to Broadbent's request, additional <br />options have been added to the program that would result in speeding <br />it up over what prior options would have done. <br /> <br />Foehner stated that the program is currently a line item program, <br />and the level of funding available is just enough to continue office <br />work on the demonstration program but is not enough to get out and develop <br />any hardware or operations in the field. The 1982 budget cuts did not <br />directly effect the program as they eliminated the summer cloud seeding <br />activities of WPRS. <br /> <br />Foehner stated that two bills have been introduced this year <br />relating to weather modification. One is the so-called Cannon Bill <br />and it is very similar to the bill that was supported by the North <br />American Interstate Weather Modification Council last year. The other <br />bill is one that has been developed by the Department of Commerce. Both <br />have to do with the institutional establishment of weather modification <br />programs. <br /> <br />The Task Committee concluded that the key step in moving along <br />this program at this time is to get favorab~e action on the Secretarial <br />Issues Document from the Secretary of Interior. There appears to be no <br />problem at this time in support at the Commissioner's level for this <br />program. <br /> <br />USFS - Rocky Mountain Region- <br />Water Yield Improvement <br /> <br />Lee Silvey, Hydrologi?t for the Rocky Mountain Region, USFS, <br />reported on the status of both the regional plan within that region <br />and the individual forest plans. He said that drafts of the regional <br />plan and the forest plans may be ready for review in about two to three <br />months. The regional plan and the individual forest plans all contain <br />the water yield improvement issue and have addressed the issue in terms <br />of measures that are currently utilized in the multipurpose operation <br />of the National Forest. In other words, the primary means of increasing <br />water yield utilized was specifying procedures for harvesting commercial <br />timber. . <br /> <br />Silvey reported that the draft regional plan will recommend one <br />plan that attempts to optimize the several objectives of the National <br />Forests and is predicated upon a sustained yield of timber over the <br />next fifty years. By combining some clear cuts with some partial cuts, <br />the region estimates that it would be harvesting 17,000 acres of timber <br />a year and would be developing from this cut, approximately 9,000 to <br />15,000 acre-foot per year of additional runoff from each block of 17,000 <br />acres cut. Because of some diminution in runoff improvement as time <br />passes, the accumulative total water yield improvement is not the sum <br />of the individual year totals. The steady-state improvement is esti- <br />mated to be about 148,000 acre-feet per year. <br /> <br />B-27 <br /> <br />1. <br /> <br />,. "' <br />