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Section 6 Implementation and Recommendations for Colorado's Water Supply Future Potential Impacts of Water Conservation on Supply Reliability and Potential Uses of Conserved Water 1. Issues related to conservation and reliability are specific to each utility and dependent upon the portfolio of water rights (type and priority). 2. Water planners are strongly encouraged to analyze safe yield and develop reliability criteria for their systems. Water providers should evaluate the actual impacts of conservation on system yields and reliability through model runs and reasonable assumptions about technological and behavior savings that may be expected from customers during droughts before and after the implementation of conservation measures. 4. The impacts of the implementation of water conservation measures on the reliability of water systems should be examined based on the potential uses of the conserved water, such as new growth, instreamflows, drought reserve, or lease or sale to other entities. 5. The use of a portion of conserved water for new growth or drought reserve by the conserving utility appears possible under most circumstances without impacting reliability. 6. 7 The use of a portion of conserved water for environmental flows also is feasible, especially if the water is subject to a pull back by the utility during drought or other water shortages. Some conserved water, such as from in-basin direct flow rights, may have limitations if transferred to an environmental flow. At this time, based on extensive utility feedback, it is very unlikely that any utility would permanently sell conserved water to another utility. 8. When evaluating demand reduction, it appears that some additional water savings can still be achieved through temporary drought measures and behavioral changes, even after the implementation of technological water conservation measures. Future efforts should attempt to quantify savings that could be achieved through temporary behavioral changes once technological water conservation measures have been successfully implemented. Potential Savings from Water Conservation Measures While most water providers have implemented significant conservation, there are opportunities to achieve even greater conservation savings. In the first phase of SWSI, it was estimated that providers across the state have implemented permanent conservation measures that will ultimately reduce future demand in excess of 12 percent, which would be included in the projected overall savings presented below. Based on information gathered by this TRT, it appears that additional demand reduction can be accomplished by a variety of measures. These measures, if fully and successfully implemented, represent a range of demand reduction from 287,000 AF to 459,000 AFY by 2030. As with all options, there are significant technical, engineering, legal, and institutional challenges associated with how much demand reduction can occur and how much this demand reduction can be used to address Colorado's future water supply need (see Section 5). 2. The average cost to achieve these water conservation savings is estimated to be $10,600/AF. The more inexpensive measures, i.e., the "low-hanging fruit" cost as little as $1,000 to $2,000/AF. This makes it acost-effective option for most providers. Some water conservation measures, such as sub- metering ofmulti-family housing and reduction of irrigated turf areas, will be much easier to implement with new development than through the retrofit of existing development. 4. Water conservation in most cases can reduce or delay the need for additional water supply development projects, reduce or delay the need 6-10 PRELIMINARY DRAFT