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<br />OJJJ36 <br /> <br />TITLE: <br /> <br />COLORADO WATER REsOURCE DEVELOPMENT <br /> <br />NEED: To provide Colorado state officials and their constituents with a tool to make informed <br />decisions regarding proposals for the greater utilization of Colorado River waters and to <br />strategically develop Colorado's interstate compact entitlement to the fullest extent possible. <br /> <br />BACKGROUND: Interstate compacts and supreme court decrees on all of Colorado's major <br />rivers have placed an upper limit on the amount of water that can be developed by each state in <br />each of the major river basins. While Colorado has not yet come close to fully developing its <br />compact entitlement on the Colorado River, other states such as California, have reached and <br />even exceeded their apportioned amount. As the economies in the states downstream from <br />Colorado develop at a rapid pace, Colorado's ability to develop its full compact entitlement is <br />placed in jeopardy. <br /> <br />New reservoirs, enlargements of existing reservoirs, exchanges between water users, application <br />of system integration concepts, and acquisition of instream flow water rights are just a few <br />examples of the many types of water resource development projects that could be proposed in <br />Colorado to develop its water resources. The CWCB, in cooperation with the Division of <br />Wildlife, has acquired over 6,500 miles of instream flow water rights to protect the environment <br />to a reasonable degree. <br /> <br />The CWCB and the SED are also currently working with water users in the Gunnison River basin <br />to develop a computer model to evaluate various "what-if' scenarios for strategic planning <br />purposes. <br /> <br />There is a great deal of uncertainty in assessing the impacts of various proposed projects, <br />especially the potentially positive impact on development of our interstate compact entitlement <br />and potentially negative impacts on the instream flow water rights which have already been <br />acquired by the CWCB. <br /> <br />Attempts to develop new projects are often caught in expensive and time consuming litigation, <br />a large part of which is spent arguing on who has the best river model and whether or not such <br />model includes the proper modeling assumptions to reflect current water rights administration and <br />use. This shortcoming has made it slow and difficult to determine how much water could safely <br />be developed or provided to a variety of environmental interests such as endangered fish. <br /> <br />Currently, the state does not have standardized uniformly accepted computer models of river <br />basins throughout the state which could be the basis for sound strategic planning. <br />