OCR Text |
Show Snowpack measurement program to be discussed at meets Alternate ways of managing, financing, and operating the program that measures Utah's mountain snowpack and forecasts streamflow will be discussed in public meetings in Salt Lake City, Roosevelt, and Richfield Rich-field in January. George D. McMillan, State Conservationist, Con-servationist, USDA Soil Conservation Service (SCSI, says that an examination of the SCS Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecast Program was requested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The three meetings are designed to get ideas on how the program could be managed differently. The ideas will be forwarded to decisionmakers in USDA. The Salt Lake City session is on January 8 at the Ramada Inn. The Roosevelt meeting on January 9 at the Moon Lake Electric Building, 188 West 2nd North; and in Richfield on January 10 at the County Courthouse. The Salt Lake City meeting will begin at 2 p.m. The meetings at Roosevelt and Richfield Rich-field will begin at 7:15 p.m. "From public comments across the West, the Department will make one recommendation," McMillan explains. The recommendation could propose transferring parts or all of the program to nonfederal or state agencies, maintaining the existing situation or altering the level at which the program operates. The Snow Survey and Water supply Forecast Program measures the water content in the mountain snowpack and predicts early season streamflow. Mountain runof f produced by snowmelt provides 75 to 80 percent of Utah's streamflow in the spring and summer. |