ment, and technological assistance to reorient their work so as to buttress 
the activities and programs mentioned above, and we recommend that sys- 
tematic effort be expended in an attempt to do so. 
THE NATIONAL FISHERIES PLAN 
NACOA urged, in its first two annual reports, that a comprehensive plan 
for development and conduct of fisheries efforts in the United States be 
generated. The Eastland Resolution (S. Res. 92-184) expressed these same 
needs. We are gratified that such a plan is now being developed by NOAA. 
WEATHER MODIFICATION AND FOOD 
There now exists marginal capability in some types of weather control, 
but steady improvement or more than marginal operational usefulness is 
by no means automatic. It was to this, the necessary sharpening of effort, 
that we addressed our attention in previous years by stressing: 
@ the need to overcome the existing fragmentation of Federal programs 
in weather modification now scattered amongst numerous Federal 
agencies ; 
e the need for greater emphasis on research in the physics of cloud 
formation and on the science and technology of rainfall augmentation ; 
and 
© the need to confront legislative and public policy issues governing the 
proper use of a new technological capability which has the potential 
of doing harm as well as good. 
In light of the current need to increase world-wide agricultural produc- 
tivity, the effect of the increase in market value of food on the benefit-cost 
1atio of weather modification could be sufficient to encourage the opera- 
tional use of modification techniques whether we are ready for it or not. 
The evidence suggests, although it is not conclusive, that a one- or two-inch 
increase in rainfall could be stimulated during the growing season in certain 
areas of the central plains. South Dakota, for example, is now preparing to 
carry out rainfall augmentation operations over 60% of its area this sum- 
mer with the goal of increasing rainfall by one or two inches and decreas- 
ing the occurrence of damaging hail. About $1 million will go into this 
effort (about 75% State, 25% county funding) with a target benefit-to- 
cost ratio of ten to one. 
In the last two years NACOA has made numerous recommendations hav- 
ing to do with weather modification. While there has been progress in some 
areas, others, we regret to say, have shown little change. And also, the 
failure to establish Federal regulations and procedures to minimize conflict 
and litigation arising from planned and actually performed weather modi- 
fication operations is paralleled by our failure to take the initiative in estab- 
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