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<br />Colorado State Parks and Recreation Department <br />Paul Flack, Hydrologist <br />Administrator, Colorado State Parks <br /> <br />When Steve Reeves asked me to fill in for him my immediate response was "Why me?" I don't hunt, I don't fish, I went <br />on a rafting trip where I had to change myundecwear about three or four times, and that's about it. <br /> <br />I don't have much of a life, and the people out there that know me will attest to that. So, as Steve was quick to point out, <br />there were actually four or five other people that were asked to talk before he asked me. Mike French declined because <br />he said he would be with the Governor all day. Right! The thing that scared me the most was that he said, "Well, Paul. <br />you might as well do it anyway because )'Ou're the water expert." And I immediately froze. My God, he had said those <br />words. Water Expert. I would rather light my hair on fire than be called "Water Expert." What is a water expert? <br />Nobody knows. So I went to my Funk and Wagnel and looked up the term "water expert." And by the way, it was <br />thought that the two worst words anybody can be referred to as were "water lawyer," but that's not true; it's "water <br />expert. " <br /> <br />There are a lot of definitions for water expert; I won't go through all of them: <br /> <br />somebody who describes the congressional budget debate as speedy; <br />somebody who thought the Arkansas and the Ark-Kansas were two different rivers; <br />somebody who goes up to a bartender and orders a fifteen when actually he wants a seven and seven; <br />somebody who thought all the "Stop and Go's" along highway 50 were merely public restrooms; <br />somebody who thought a Rocky Ford Melloneer was somehow related to the deer family; <br />somebody who had the idea that outdoor recreation was merely drinking beer in a lawn chair; <br />somebody who thought "honey-dew" was a weather term; <br />somebody who wears penny loafers because lace up shoes were just too gosh dam complicated; <br />and finally, somebody whose family tree doesn't fork. <br /> <br />My father was in the water business for 35 years, and he always warned about an engineer who tried to be a water <br />lawyer and he always warned about a water lawyer who tried to be an engineer. Now you're going to find out about <br />something even worse, a hydrologist talking about economics. By the way, a lot of people ask me why, since I'm in the <br />same business that my father was in, we never went into business for ourselves. Given the fact that our last name was <br />the same and the only title we could only come up with for our company was Flack and More Rack, we decided we <br />would move onto different horizons. So I will just simply say that I decided, since economics is not really my forte, that I <br />would tape the speech that I'm about to give and maybe I could jazz it up a little bit besides just the usual plain numbers <br />and facts, so I did that last night. I taped this speech and put it up on the podium and sat out there in the empty room. <br />and when I woke up I decided that maybe I should just stick to the facts. So pencils ready and here we go. <br /> <br />Arkansas River Basin Water Forum <br /> <br />35 <br /> <br />itA River of Dreams and Realities" <br /> <br /> <br />.. <br /> <br />The state park economic impact report of 1993 shows that there is $2 million total economic impact upon local <br />communities for every 100,00 visitors to a state park and this should hold true also for the Great Plains Reservoir should <br />a recreation area ever be fully developed there. In addition, the towns of Leadville, Salida, Buena Vista, Canyon City, <br />and Trinidad, as well as smaller towns in the Arkansas Valley, all derive value from parks whether it is the quality of life <br />or economic values. Buena Vista, Salida, and Canyon City have all developed river parks as well as Pueblo, and use of <br />those parks and in these areas is important both economically and to the quality of life. Towns like Salida have publicly <br />recognized recreation as playing a significant role in increases in sales taxes receipts. Both the cities oflamar and <br />Trinidad have supported parks in their efforts the past year, again recognizing the economic impacts. <br /> <br />Specifically, at Pueblo State Park in 1995 revenues at the park were $670,000. Visitation at the park was 1,415,000, <br />and the economists tell me that that translates to about $30 million in annual economic total impact. At the Arkansas <br />Headwaters recreation area during the summer months of 1995 total visitation was almost 460,000. That's an increase <br />of over 64% since 1990. Again, the economists have determined that total statewide economic impact of the Arkansas <br />