IBCC Meeting Notes March 7 2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

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then get the water after the fact. What we are facing right now is that water has become on the forefront of people's nunds. Growth is going to continue and we all realize that. It has to continue to keep our economies going and growth drives the State of Colorado and if it slows down it will cause problems. We've finally figured out that water is a finite resource in the state. Reallocation of the water resource is going to be necessary. Ask people 50 years if what we have today is acceptable they would say no. We need to be far more judicious with what we do with our water in the future. Water has to be part of the growth planning stage as we move forward. When this group was originally formed he was excited that this group could create a vision and impact change. We no longer have the luxury of being independent. We need to plan on how water will be used in the future not only brainstorming where we need to be but how to get there. We are decades behind where we should be -drought of 2002 -CWCB did SWSI but it got people talking even if it has been controversial. We are still not learning that we can be individual basins within the state. We need to tallc about how we can integrate everything. The entire emphasis of the CWCB with SWSI was to get the information out there. We should have been doing this 10 years ago. We can't make decisions, we can't plan for the fiiture without the data -the consumptive and Nonconsumptive needs assessments are important data. With regard to planning and financing -Policy 18 was to provide some public good to have public equity in the water project. There may be mutual benefit for water projects. There are a number of public interests in water that we are trying to achieve and public should help pay. There needs to be a change in thought about how we put projects together so that they are multi-purpose, multi- funded, etc. Parochialism does not produce a maximization of benefits that you can get out of water project and does promote the maximization of the water we have. S: Cozier: One of Rio Grande Roundtable members said he wasn't going to be around in 50 years. Didn't see anybody being excited about the future. Have lived on both sides of the divide. It isn't very palatable to see what we see on the east slope (traffic, growth, etc.). Agriculture has been a very important component of our values in Colorado and the west. A lot of the comments said we need to continue to honor these values but consider other ones (environment, recreation). No one mentioned in their comments global warming. If we are going any place we need to be in a proactive position without destroying the free market. There is a state master plan it is the prior appropriate doctrine that works fine until you run out water. J. Danielson: Commend Harris for forcing IBCC going through this exercise. What are we doing? Being an engineer and not a philosopher, what vision do I want for Colorado? To develop a vision you have to compete with constraints that exist. What are the constraints that affect our vision? Carpenter, original Denver Water Board, etc. Look at their world (only 400,000 people). Now we have 5 million people between in the state. Growth decisions are made ad hoc is a limitation. Prior appropriation is a limitation but people realized we live in a water short area and this was designed to protect us. The econonucs of overturning the prior appropriation would be overwhelming. The other limitation is the free market economy and this economy makes decisions. If we cut agriculture by 4 percent, we can have 10 million people in Colorado. At least 1 percent of agriculture needs to be dried up anyway. It is wasteful and have water quality problems. We are not mal~ing the agriculture dry-up decisions in a way that make sense. Government needs to be smart in terms of how we 6