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Future Water Suoolv The Pleasant Valley Pipeline which delivers Poudre River water to the SCFP was constructed solely for the purpose of providing future customers an alternative to C-BT water. With the Pleasant Valley Pipeline installed and operational, ELCO now needs to focus its resources on the acquisition, storage and conversion of water rights originating in the Poudre River. Most of the District's future water supply will be obtained through developer dedications. ELCO does not currently collect cash from developers or new customers to purchase water rights on the open market. Instead, ELCO requires developers to dedicate water rights sufficient to supply the anticipated demands within their development. New developments are required to supply enough water to meet demands during droughts that are expected to occur once every fifty years. Many new developments within ELCO's service area are occurring on farms that have historically used Poudre River water for irrigation. ELCO anticipates accepting those native water rights in partial satisfaction of its development requirements. Since ELCO accepts native supplies to satisfy its raw water dedication requirements, very little C-BT water will be dedicated to the District in the future. If C-BT water exists on farms that are developed within ELCO's service area, it will likely be sold or exchanged for less expensive native supplies that the District will accept. Raw Water Storaae Variability in the yield of Poudre basin water rights, both year to year and month to month, will require ELCO to develop raw water storage for the following purposes: 1) to store water during peak flow months (May, June and July) for use in months when the District's water rights yield little or no water, 2) to store water in years of surplus for use in years when a water supply deficit occurs, and 3) to store the historic return flow component of agricultural water rights converted to municipal use for year-round releases required to meet court-imposed return flow obligations. Chanae of Use Conversion of ELCO's Poudre River water rights from agricultural to municipal use will require detailed engineering analyses and applications to Water Court. The easiest change cases take three to five years before a decree is issued. The more complicated change cases can take as much as 10 years and cost millions of dollars. The engineering analyses required in Water Court applications that change the use of agricultural water focuses on the historical consumptive use of the crops grown with the water right and return flows resulting from irrigation of those crops. Determination of the consumptive use and identifying the amount, location and timing of return flows makes change cases increasingly complicated and costly. ELCO currently has two change Clear Water Solutions, Inc. East Larimer County Water District 2007 Water Conservation Plan 17