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and we are now at a point at the Airport Industrial Park where we have a dual system; if either of the systems fail, the other system will carry it, meeting all the current fire codes requirements. That allowed us to attract UNISYS and Target warehousing because they did not have to come and spend 300,000-500,000 dollars in their businesses to put in fire protection systems. Since 1984, the board has invested about $1.75 million in that effort, but it is paying dividends. We have realized in the vicinity of $300,000 dollars worth of additional income annually for those businesses that have moved to the airport. We're getting a good return on our investment. This past year the board has spent a lot of time saying, "We've worked hard these past few years to enhance and secure our water system, but what else can we do to help Pueblo Economic Development Corporation, who is our marketing agent for Pueblo? PEDCo goes out to attract these new businesses. What can we do as a utility to assist PEDeO? We decided that we would try to assist PEDCO and go out and find water intense customers that are clean industries and would be good for Pueblo and this valley. I think when communities in our valley grow it benefits all, whether it be a prison in Ordway or Florence, or a new business in Pueblo or Colorado Springs. Our community's citizens are very mobile and that providesjobs for our families and a future for our children. What we're in the process of doing is developing a marketing plan that actually the Board of Water Works will fund. We're going to first go out and identify high water consuming industries that might look to locate in the Pueblo area. This might be canning, bottling, microchip manufacturing type industries that are water intense but clean, and would be good for our area, our communities. We're also going to try to identify the factors which influence their decisions to relocate and to expand to a new area. We are then going to develop a marketing campaign and then we are going to reach out. We're going to send that marketing campaign out throughout the west. We hope to get some bites, and we will then form teams of elected Board of Water Works board members, PEDCO board members, and staff from both organizations to go visit these industries, wherever "they may be, to bring them to our valley and to Pueblo. We have taken the first major step. We're doing some local gathering of information and searching of records in developing preliminary marketing material. We've also retained the services of a marketing firm in California. That is going to be our first target or area and they're going to assist us in that process. We expect to expend some $80,000 over a 8-10 month period trying to attract businesses. The next project I want to talk about I will refer to as HARP .- the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk Project. Water has played an important part in this valley, not only to municipalities but to agriculture. Pueblo has grown up around water. Water has been an important part of our history. We wouldn't have been able to have the vital economy we had and industries like CF&I without water and the Arkansas River. I'm going to talk about the purpose of this project, and then I'll show a few slides. This project will improve the quality of life in Pueblo. It will be an urban park, an entertainment center. We also feel there are great historic and educational benefits that we can provide in such a riverwalk and, finally and importantly, it is an economic development project. It will improve the tax base for both property and sales taxes. It will create jobs, some 300 jobs during construction and some 250-300 permanent jobs. It enhances our ability for tourism and complements our new convention center and hotel that will be located adjacent to the project. I will touch on that shortly. We feel that it will have an economic impact to the tune of $3-$5 million per year on Pueblo as we build the project. An important part was the election that we had in November, and I'm going to touch on that just a little as we go through these slides. I thought first it would be interesting if we could look back in time with a slide of the river, because it has played an important part in Pueblo's history. I think many of you realize that the Arkansas river, particularly the point. close to or actually on the site of the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk Project, played several important parts in history. If you go way back you would find that it was the border between the French and Spanish territories, later U.S. and Mexico. Pike's stockade is actually located on the project, and I'll come back to that a little later. It's actually about a block and a half south of where Fort Pueblo is. The river has also had some devastating effects and to see what the project is, you have to think of the history because the river got moved in 1921. Originally the river flowed right past City Hall. This is Union, South Main and this is Santa Fe. The 1921 flood changed that. There were over 100 lives lost, $19 million in damages, .and I think 60% of the businesses in downtown Pueblo were eliminated. Here again you can see the channel. In 1922, the river was relocated up against this bluff, a levy was put in, and over time two or three of these blocks were turned into parking lots. Here are some more pictures of the damage done in 1921. That's up Arkansas River Basin Water Forum 38 itA River of Dreams and Realities"