within the country, both Federal and non-Federal. More importantly, 

 though, is the need to have a single Federal agency responsible for tak- 

 ing the lead in development of the technology of the overall program. 

 The present fragmented approach is moving the countiy ahead in weather 

 modification in an erratic fashion. 



Certain basic facilities and services which represent common needs of 

 most Federal programs do not exist. Instrument development programs 

 are critical to progress in weather modification, yet no focused program 

 in this area is in evidence. There is a strong need for a central Federal 

 facility to test, evaluate, and calibrate instrumentation and equipment 

 used in field experiments. Again, no such facility exists. The lead agency 

 should be responsible for doing the type of field experiment recommended 

 for the Great Plains area. It should focus on drawing on the research re- 

 sults of the NSF and other Federal agencies and testing these in an op- 

 erational environment. The end objective would be a feedback to the 

 mission-oriented programs of the other Federal agencies, and a technology- 

 transfer to the private weather modification sector. 



There is an immediate need for some form of regulation. As the Fed- 

 eral Government invests increasing resources in major field projects such 

 as the National Hail Research Experiment and the Great Plains project, 

 it becomes imperative that these experiments not be compromisd by other 

 seeding activities on their peripheries. To illustrate the problem, there 

 recently was a test carried out to determine whether a seeding program 

 upstream of a field project could be affecting the project. The results 

 showed that 20 to 30 percent of the seeding agent introduced 100 miles 

 upstream was actually contaminating the field project. In addition, the 

 National Science Foundation has reported that two major weather modi- 

 fication projects supported by the NSF in the western United States were 

 seriously compromised by unregulated cloud seeding in the vicinity of the 

 projects. In one of the cases, the Foundation investment of over a quarter 

 of a million dollars was negated by the lack of regulation. 



Regulation at this time should be the minimum necessary to ensure 

 that critical Federal experiments are not vitiated as a result of contami- 

 nation by a nearby seeding activity and to ensure that all commercial 

 operators are licensed and meet certain specified standards to protect 

 the populace from unsafe seeding procedures. 



EVALUATION 



Experimental weather modification is an activity that does not lend 

 itself to demonstrating a precise connection between actions and outcomes. 

 The accuracy of assessment after the fact can be increased by better use 

 of advanced instrumentation such as geostationary satellites, modern radars, 

 computer models, aircraft probes, nuclei counters, etc. However, even .with 

 the best of instrumentation it is impossible to measure all variables over 



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