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Show 31 lot of rainy years. Are we now on the bad side of that cycle or what does that look like for us? Mr. EUBANK. Well, the HALE cycle is a double sun spot cycle and the spots kind of go about every ten and a half or eleven years, and we're just coming out of the peak of a sun spot cycle. That's the problem. You know is it a two- year deal? Is it a three- year deal? The average drought in Utah is between three and four years but we have gone as long as nine. So we never quite know exactly when the end is. We know we're in one, but all these different parameters still aren't good enough to predict the end. Mr. CANNON. It seems that prior to the last three or four years we actually had lots of more than normal wet years. Mr. EUBANK. Yes. Mr. CANNON. And it looks like the cycle is eight, nine or 10 years. Could we be in this thing another- based on just the HALE cycle, another three, four, or five years? Mr. EUBANK. YOU say could we be in it that long? Mr. CANNON. Yes. Mr. EUBANK. It's possible. And no one knows. My opinion is we are probably within two years of coming out of it. That's just based on my experience of seeing the weather in this valley bounce up, and this state bounce up and down. Mr. CANNON. YOU mentioned the two- year cycle that we've sort of lived off our reservoirs. Many of those are very low right now so we would want to conserve on them. Mr. EUBANK. I think Deer Creek is the lowest it has ever been. Mr. CANNON. Yes, I was quite surprised as I drove by there the other day. SOIL MOISTURE MONITORING You talked earlier about temperature and precipitation, those are pretty easy to measure and, of course, soil monitoring is not nearly as successful and predicting what the ocean is going to do. Who does soil moisture monitoring and who pays for that and do we have a national program there? Mr. EUBANK. The Soil Conservation Service, the snow survey people. What's the Federal agency. Do you know, Tom? Is it National- it's NRSC, National Mr. CANNON. National Resource Conservation Service? Mr. EUBANK. That's the Federal group and then locally they're the ones that monitor in Utah. I think every state in the west has that same agency. Mr. CANNON. DO you know if that agency is available on line, by any chance? Mr. EUBANK. Yes, it is. Absolutely, it is. Mr. CANNON. Thank you. Mr. EUBANK. We use it every day. Mr. CANNON. Good. Did you have a comment? Dr. POTTER. Yes. I think it's fair to say, though, that the number of places around the country where soil moisture is measured is woefully inadequate. I think most of the people in the agricultural side and the soils concept would say that. Soil characteristics vary a lot from one local place to another and just as snow pack in |
