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~ Dally Sentinel editorials 7.2(,.'2- Water deal doesn't leave us high and dry The Western Slope didn't get everything it wanted out of a water deal signed last week with Denver. But this side of the mountains got what it needed - money to build a new res- ervoir - and' helped to solve a laundry list of problems. The Colorado River Water Conservation District and the Denver Water Board signed a deal Tuesday wherein Den- ver receives a 40 percent in- terest in the proposed Wol- ford Mountain Reservoir north of Kremmling in ex- change for $43 million, which will pay for all but $6 million of the project. That's not nearly as good a deal. from a Western Slope perspective, as the deal that was on the table. Under that scenario, Denver would have paid only $10 million less to lease, rather than own, Wol- ford Mountain water. But other realities intervened. Chief among them was the river district's prospect of selling bonds to finance the project. Legal entanglements threatened to delay the project, if not indefinitely, then long enough that favor- able interest rates and a fa- vorable construction climate would have slipped by the wayside and costs would have escalated substantially. Under those conditions, po- tential investors were under- standably hesitant to buy the bonds. As Ted Brooks, president of the river district board put it, I "considering all the factors, I this (deal) is the only way Wolford Mountain will ever I' be built." I While there was always 'I hope that the Western Slope would get more benefits out of the reservoir, what it end- ed up getting is a far sight better than a sharp stick in the eye. A 60,000 acre-foot reservoir on the Muddy Creek north of Kremmling, for example, will fill a valley that isn't exactly known for its remarkable beauty. Environmental ef- ! fects are negligible (in fact, some of the water will help endangered fish). And the Western Slope gets the bene- fits of a potential tail water fiShery below the dam and 36,000 acre-feet of water stor- age capacity at a very Jow cost. Denver, meanwhile, con- Siderably reduces the post- Two Forks pressure to mine/ other areas of the Western:' Slope for additional ,. transmountain diversions. Water shortages around ski areas in Grand and Summit counties are addressed and a lawsuit is settled to boot. Trepidation that the provi- sions of the complex deal might not go as smoothly as they should are not without some justification. But as long as both parties can be trusted to act in good faith, there's no reason not to dot the i's and cross the t's and get on with construction of Wolford Mountain.