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Section 5 <br />Addressing the Water Supply Gap Technical Roundtable <br />In order to develop comparable costs of each <br />alternative, it will be necessary to determine capital <br />and annual O~eM costs. Examples of these costs are <br />as follows: <br />~ Capital Costs. permitting, mitigation, water <br />rights, land acquisition, land easements, pumps, <br />pipe, treatment, storage, general contingency, and <br />engineering/legal contingency. <br />~ Annual OEM. energy, equipment maintenance, <br />and replacement costs. <br />These costs should then be presented in terms of net <br />present value and then on a cost per AF basis in <br />order to compare alternatives. <br />Preliminary estimates of the Colorado River Return <br />Project and the Yampa Pumpback indicate the <br />capital costs are in the $2 to $6 billion range for <br />projects delivering 150,000 to 250,000 AFY. It is <br />anticipated that the cost for Blue Mesa <br />multipurpose and the South Platte and Arkansas <br />agricultural transfer pumpback will be in the same <br />range. <br />5.4.2 Agricultural Transfers from <br />the Arkansas and South Platte <br />Basins <br />There is sufficient irrigated acreage in the South <br />Platte and Arkansas Basins to meet the gaps in these <br />basins if agricultural water is transferred to M~eI <br />use. In order to provide the needed additional water <br />supply for these two basins there must be an annual <br />dry up of some irrigated land, regardless if it is a <br />traditional agricultural transfer or one of the <br />alternatives identified by the Alternative Agriculture <br />Transfer TRT. The amount of acreage required to be <br />dried up annually will be a function of the seniority <br />of water right, firm annual yield required, available <br />storage, ability to recapture consumable return <br />flows and losses in storage, delivery and treatment. <br />As an example, in order for 90,000 AF of firm annual <br />yield to be supplied to the gap area of the South <br />Platte and Arkansas Basin, an estimated 50,000 to <br />66,000 irrigated acres would be taken out of <br />agricultural production annually. As described in <br />Section 3, under a rotational fallowing alternative <br />3000 <br />~ 2000 <br />a~ <br />R <br />L <br />O <br />++ <br />N 1000 <br />O <br />~~ <br />°~ o <br />O c <br />~ o <br />0 a -1000 <br />E <br />R <br />~+ -2000 <br />t <br />c <br />O <br />~ -3000 <br />-4000 <br />12000 <br />10000 <br />8000 LL <br />a <br />6000 ~ <br />R <br />4000 <br />2000 <br />Figure 5-13 <br />Storage, Inflows and Releases from MEtI Reservoir Receiving Baseload Deliveries <br />5-20 FINAL DRAFT <br />