Arkansas - UNC - Inquiries into Buy and Dry_May2008

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wanted by key participants. But, the key potential participants may need a way to consider the opportunities that is more detailed than the ideas alone. And we need to make more information available to all, to help improve the working of the market. Inquiries with the ditch companies and with local governments will add missing pieces to the puzzle, and help identify interests and preferences which will define requirements for attractive and inclusive transfers. It is important to note that these new inquiries will be complementary to those of both the active Super Ditch private negotiations and project, and other University-based research programs. The inquiries will be entirely public. Certainly, much of what is asked may involve matters that are internal to ditch companies, and they will very likely not want to offer all of their information to the public. What they do choose to disclose will be important for advancing to the next steps toward working models of what can be done. What the ditch companies do not disclose may also be important in their own deliberations, in three partly overlapping areas. First, the companies may benefit from considering their collective assets in terms of the new opportunities as well as traditional water sale opportunities. Second, the companies may benefit from internal considerations of the organizational and management issues arising from the new opportunities. And third, the companies may benefit from a review of the interests of shareholders in alternative forms of asset management and reorganization of farming practices and goals. We explicitly seek to stimulate internal discussions which we do not want disclosed unless and until the ditch companies wish to do so. Because this is a competitive market in private property, but a market which should function better than it does, we want to walk a careful line between learning what is needed to assess "how to do it right", in water transfers, and straying into proprietary interests. There are two groups who have traditionally not been well represented in the water market, and we will also engage one of them. We will not engage the environmental interests, but they are working intensively on the Non-consumptive Needs Assessments, and the development of the common technical platform. That work will get those interests "on the map" and on the table. The missing voice that we want to hear is that of the local governments. Future quality of life and amenity values around the Valley will be critical for the attraction of new investment, and for realizing opportunities that complement on-going agriculture and add to the local economic base. It is important to hear their interests, and get whatever guidance is available from them on their interests and preferences for green-ways, recreational facilities and access, and other water-related conditions now and in the future. There is a great deal of enthusiasm for cooperation in new water management, and there is a great deal at stake. This part of the proposal is to reach out to the ditch companies, irrigators, and local governments to do the best we can to be sure their goals are considered and their preferences known, to help break through the chicken-and-egg problem and providing a starting point for more-informed public discussion. RATIONALE Part 2: Known Technical Questions to Address: 11