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Colorado River Water Conservation District Statewide Water Supply Initiative Interests Statement Page 1 0 of 11 The goal of the River District is to protect existing and future economic opportunities for the residents of Western Colorado. There js no reasonab~y foreseeable need to build new transmountain diversion projects~ Front Range water demands can be met through a combjnation of better groundwater management, reuse, conservation, system interconnections, reoperation, and in..basin transfers and exchanges. Additionaf transmountain supplies from existing projects may result from ongoing East Slope-West Slope cooperative water supply investigations. Present and future West Slope water uses, including environmental and recreational needs, must be protected prior to diversion of additional transmountain water. The River District is actively involved in a number of cooperative water supply investigations that include TlVID's. These include: Eagle River Water Supply Investigation; Upper Colorado Water Supply Investigation (UPCO); South Metro Water Supply Investigation (DougCo); and Fry-Ark PSOP. River District Interests vis a vis SWSI: 1 f Ensure any preferred alternates pertaining to TMD's are consistent with River District policy pertaining to TlVID's~ 2~ Ensure that SWSI recognizes explicitly the cooperative water supply investigations listed above, supportst and does not detract from those efforts~ 3. Conclusions from the above investigations will either be reached in the course of the SWSI or after completion. Conclusions reached prior should be incorporated into SWSI's conclusions. (This is in conflict wI SWS/'s stated approach of independently scoring and ranking alternates) and should specifically recognize and allow for the conclusions which are expected to occur after SWSI is complete~ 4~ Recogni tion of the ignored fundamentals of TMD' s - the easy -- and inexpensi ve -- ones are done and new TMD supplies will invariably stem from pump backs. Small Upper Basin Storage Description: Costs aside, water development to physically serve water users that are supply limited has been identified as a high priority of many roundtable participants~ Most of these users are located high in the basin~ The ability of agricultural users to pay full cost recovery of water development is limited; there may be some opportunity to repay the capital required to develop augmentation supplies for domestic users.