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• Board Meeting Date: 3/18/2008
• Description: OWCDP Section - Presentation on the 2007 Drought & Water Supply Assessment
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

• There is discrepancy in drought planning between large urban providers and
smaller rural agencies. While most urban providers had a drought plan in place,
the majority of Colorado water providers consisting predominantly of smaller,
rural utilities had not developed a drought response plan.
The lack of drought response planning was an issue in all seven Colorado Water
Divisions.
Findings -Water Conservation Planning and Programs
• 48 percent of Colorado utilities either had a water conservation plan or were in
progress developing one. But a similar number of agencies (48 percent) did not
have a conservation plan on the books or in progress.
• It was small utilities that did not have a conservation plan. Only 8 percent of the
population resides in an area not covered by a conservation plan.
• Conservation planning activities have accelerated in recent years. More than 70
percent of the existing and pending conservation plans in Colorado were
completed since 2004.
• Only 30 percent of respondents had a water conservation program budget, nearly
70 percent did not.
• The total utility funding for water conservation in Colorado in 2007 was
$11,224,500. However, $8,000,000 of this came from a single agency.
• The median conservation program budget was $25,000 so half of the programs
in the state had a budget smaller than $25,000.
• The importance of offsetting the increased demand of future growth through
conservation was rated at an average of 3.4 on a scale where 1 is not at all
important and 5 is extremely important.
• The most popular conservation program tool vas residential indoor audits and
leak detection. This type of program was implemented at 35 percent of the
responding agencies. Incentives for the purchase of efficient toilets were
implemented at 22 percent and showerhead and clothes washer programs at 17
and 15 percent respectively.
Findings -Climate Change and Long Term Planning
• Sixty percent of the agencies surveyed had water supply master plans for raw
and/or treated water and 35 percent did not have such plans. This result was
identical to what was found in the 2003 survey.