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<br />Section 3 <br />Lessons Learned <br /> <br />During the Water Conservation Workshops, discussions regularly occurred to illuminate lessons <br />learned by the speakers and participants regarding their water conservation planning and <br />implementation experiences. Generally, the lessons learned were identified and in some cases <br />chronicled to help focus conversations and dialogues that will be occurring in the future within <br />various venues (e.g., Office of Water Conservation and Drought Mitigation planning, development <br />of future legislative agendas, etc.). A summary of the chronicled lessons learned from both the <br />Westminster and Berthoud meetings are presented below. These lists present specific "Successes" <br />and "Challenges" that individuals identified regarding their planning and implementation efforts. <br /> <br />Lessons Learned <br /> <br />Planning Successes <br />Effective planning for water conservation has been found to be invaluable by a number of entities as <br />it relates to the following issues: <br /> <br />. It is cheaper to plan than react! <br />. Planning helps to create short-term and long-term goals, this in turn helps to frame current <br />activities and long-term needs for senior management, city council and Boards. <br />. Planning helps to frame how water conservation will be used in conjunction with the other <br />water resources, planning and infrastructure management activities being performed by the <br />city and/or district to compliment one another. <br />. Planning helps to defme what saved water will be used for and how it will be combined <br />with reuse, storage, and other water supply programs to meet future water demand. <br />. Buy-in from senior utility and/or district management can make huge difference in water <br />conservation if they understand and agree with goals, since they can support funding, FfEs, <br />partnerships, etc. <br />. Plans must contain costs and cost benefit analyses to help managers, city council, etc. make <br />decisions regarding water conservation program implementation. <br />. Teaming and partnerships identified during planning can make some water conservation <br />measures and programs more cost effective. <br />. CWCB Grant program will be critical to some mid to small utility/special district planning <br />efforts. <br />. Water conservation plans that pull together diverse data from various city and/or district <br />departments can be used by all departments (e.g., public works, engineering, planning, <br />parks) as a resource. <br />. It is much more cost effective to focus conservation on those measures and programs than <br />create saved water at costs below the price for replacement and/or development of new <br />water. <br />. There are many resources available to support planning increasing on a daily basis regarding <br />the cost of various measures and programs, the value of education, past successes and <br />failures, etc. <br />