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4-14 Senate Committee Interviewer, Interviewee Page 26 of 37 265 members, it is a rare pleasure that I come before the Senate of Ag Committee, rare for me and probably pleasurable for you that it's rare. And because it's with great, Senator agrees. It is with great trepidation that Colorado Municipalities in the Colorado Municipal League dived head long into water issues in less than past years that some unfi.Jl1ded conservation mandate or something like that. However there's sort of a new spirit that has arisen in the last couple of years, admitably drought driven and I'd like to just quickly share with you what that is and how this piece of legislation fits perfectly into that. You know as mentioned previously, there have been countless legislative proposals on how to fix our water problems and referred measures and what not. And this bill is different because I think, it puts the responsibility for success in those of us and those that we represent that come down here and tell you everything that's wrong and how you should fix it. It put the responsibility to come up with solutions out among the people and owners and interests in the state and into bring something cohesive back and so that's why this is different and we support it. At CML earlier this year or late last year, our board authorized the creation of a, and follow me on this because there's a lot of words, the Colorado Statewide Municipal Water Issues Committee, all of those words have significance in there because the board asks us to look at water issues and ask the committee to look at water issues in hopes of trying to find issues of common municipal interests statewide and there's that trepidation piece agall1. Because of our statewide representation and municipalities all over the state, different basins, there is usually not too much common interest as much as they are among other water rights holders. But we're working on that and I've got about 55 members of that committee have met three times now, speaker George came in and addressed them earlier this year when this drought legislation was in it's initial draft form; and the folks represent all basins small and large municipalities and we're getting somewhere with it. This process fits within should House Bill 1 177 be adopted, this fits within one of the goals of the committee is to identify common interests statewide and not just obviously with the among the municipalities but also with our friends in the Ag. industry and other industrial users environmental interests and what not. www.escriptionist.com Page 26 of 37