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4-14 Senate Committee Interviewer, Interviewee Page 17 of 37 A model we have not tried is the one that's seen here. That George referenced and that is the model that was developed here in the state of Colorado, for the Colorado River compact. Compact actually will allow us to negotiate agreement between the basin and the state of Colorado and solve the water wars that we continue to face. It's a very difficult challenge; there are lots of reasons why it won't be successful. We have very different interests in the state of Colorado; geographically, economically, socially, urban interests are different from mral interests, Ag. differences. Interests are sometimes different from environmental interests. Water is finite. The drought has underscored this recently. We have competitions and conflict for what is available; that is inevitable. To date we would address this through litigation, but that's not the best way. There are lots of reasons really well this effort must be successfi.Jl. We live in an era today, maybe more era than we've realized in the past; growth will continue. The urban Front Range demands will continue to grow. Ifwe can't figure out how to work together to meet the needs of the entire state, none of us are going to prosper. We will continue to fight and litigate and legislate. The weakest part of the state may become sacrificed areas to support urban growth. Nothing else we've tried to do has succeeded. There's little reason to believe it will all of a sudden. We should try to, it is a bold move. I really applaud Speaker George and encourage Senator Isgar and the other sponsors on this bill. Their attempt to directly confront the issues between the basin instead of . We have spent tremendous amounts of time trying to throughout piecemeal or indirectly over the years. Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District urges the committee's support for this legislation. Recently, the major players in lower Arkansas have began talking, negotiating, to resolve differences that were peace offers a proposal to expand fire project storage. That hadn't happened, since the project was organized in the 1950' s. What's remarkable is that this has been going on for 60 days and we've made amazing progress. We haven't reached an agreement yet, but everybody is committed to talking, and once we've started talking, started seriously negotiating, we've been moving forward. That makes me believe that House Bill 1177 is going to work. Thank you senator, I'd be glad to answer any questions. www.escriptionist.com Page 17 of 37