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0279 addition, this could include a review or change of the management or deliv~ pril.f.!:ices of the Canal Company to increas., I he (We rail irrigation efficiency. Additionally, many Ft. Lyon shareholders have developed supplemental ground water supplies to improve their total farm water supply. The integration of additional ground water supplies into the system will be reviewed. Programs such as these wilJ be evaluated to determine whether incentives may be developed so that the agricultural users would be less likely to sell water to other competing uses. Alternative 3: Water Salvage As previously described, the Ft. Lyon Canal has seepage losses of approximately 18% of 30% over its 110 mile length. Seepage losses in the laterals also have previously been estimated to be approximately 10%. Many of later s have been lined to improve the water supply as water is apportioned at the lateral hea gate, not at the sublateral or arm headgate. In lined laterals a greater farm headgate supply per share is available and therefore a greater historic consumptive use per share may be calculated upon which a sales price normally is established. Historically, the Ft. Lyon has been irrigated by traditional flood irrigation, supplemented, especially in the drought years of the 1950's with groundwater, and occasional sprinklers. The feasibility of lining the main canal (as well as the storage canal, and srorage reservoirs) has been studied by the Ft. Lyon company itself in the past, and to some extent by the current Boyle study with regard to the alternatives to Great Plains Reservoirs water supply. Reduction in seepage would allow existing irrigators to increase the water supply per share. Because the Ft. Lyon lands are chronically water short, much if not all of the water could be used beneficially on existing cultivated lands. (However, the Armentrour rights, with first prioriry among users of the Ft. Lyon, are probably not water short.) The economic feasibility of water salvage is based on a number of factors including: the value of alternative investments, cash flow, and availability of financing for salvage investment. Under current law water salvage generally means granting a legal right to water to a person reducing non-beneficial evaporation or transpiration. A farmer with additional acreage susceptible to irrigation traditionally uses his own "salvaged" water, but transfer of the salvaged water to other locations or uses raises broader policy and legal issues. Water salvage by certain methods has been disapproved by Colorado courtS, e.g. collection of waste water runoff, eradication of phreatophyres, drying of bogs, and impermeable cover to collect precipitation. The protection of historic return flows to other water users has been key to those decisions. Salvage is also likely to raise environmental concerns in the Ft. Lyon context, since salvage is likely to reduce wildlife habitat and wetLlnds. ~ However, recent legislative initiatives have brought Colorado back to discussions of salvage techniques. If salvage is a feasible possibility under the Ft. Lyon, some statutory changes might be required. 18