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Comments to SWSI, November 3, 2003, by John Wiener 7 Slope out of the piedmont areas and mesa highlands) was treeless until water distribution created important microenvironments that are the basis of both urban amenity and rural biodiversity. The drive for increased efficiency of use would be ill-informed without consideration of these benefits, and there may be important choices in maintenance of facilities and public interest or benefits in some of the spill-overs such as conveyance loss that creates habitat. The biological importance of corridors and connections between places magnifies the importance of these artificial creeks in semi~arid areas, With the prospect of additional changes in flows in mainstem rivers and large streams fed by snowmelt, due to climate variation or human modification for additional storage, these values may become even higher. One interesting case is Briggsdale Campground in the Pawnee Buttes National Grasslands, where an old farmstead, long since gone, has become internationally known as a stop for migrating birds, and thus birdwatchers, between the Arkansas and the South Platte. There are numerous gravel pit ponds now supporting wildlife, and the subject of trails and linear amenities has been noted above. The threat of inadequately considered increases in "efficiency" of conveyance, and perhaps also of field application or irrigation is that these environmental benefits may be lost, and this in turn makes the probability of loss of buffers and safety margins a bigger threat. Under the current conditions of radical population increase, the threats to "increase efficiency" are already strong, and as is widely appreciated, the pUblic interests in "inefficiency" are not represented where the water law protects only other water rights holders. Everyone in a watershed can be affected by drastic additional layers of regulation if environmental conditions deteriorate too far, but the defense against this created by "Inefficiency" is apparently up to processes like the SWSr. Environmentally-oriented description of the choices and trade-ofts now available, "What the Current Drought Means for the Future of Water Management in Colorado" (Luecke et aI., 2003, 66 pp, available on-line from Trout Unlimited, <www.cotrout.org>) has disappointingly little to say about the local and the rural interests that this commentary addresses. The existing expectations and values built around the amenity and environmental values of "leaky" old ditches are sadly under-appreciated in the conversation so far, in both urban and rural contexts. These values may be much higher in the future under conditions of lower water availability for any reason. A recommendation for inquiry is noted below as an appendix on agricultural efficiency. Although unpleasant to contemplate, the trends in wetlands loss and degradation of the riparian habitats mean that droughts or water supply shortages for any reason may create much higher values for the remaining areas of these kinds. The public benefits are noted below in a little more detail, but in regard to the environmental benefits, it is important to consider that current values may be only a fraction of future values. These include providing the range of environmental amenities and services, noted above and below, and also providing important environmental buffers. These buffers are safety nets for some wildlife and high-valued uses, such as waterfowl habitat and recreational hunting, and also buffers against the problems of crossing environmental thresholds such as water quality TMDLs or threatened and endangered species problems, which can destabilize a wide range of investments and opportunities, causing at the least a serious allocation of staff and management expenses in the public sector while complicating activities in the private sector. The loss of prairie potholes, for example, has affected waterfowl already, perhaps making water distribution facilities even more valuable (see Baron, J., Ed., 2002, Rockv Mountain Futures, Island Press for review of some of these issues). The problem of rural sustainability and agricultural viability "Farming no longer anchors the rural economy..." wrote Whitener and McGranahan in the USDA ERS Amber Waves magazine (Feb. 2003, on~line from USDA ERS); they noted that job growth in farm-related industry and business is greater than in farming itself, and nearly 90 percent of all farm household income in 1999 was from off~farm sources. More than half Df farm operators work off the farm, and of those 4/5 are employed full-time off the farm. The importance of rural