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whose sole purpose is to enforce watering restrictions. After encouraging discretionary <br />water conservation, Denver's water department imposed mandatory water restrictions. <br />How did we eg, t here Two causes are obvious: several dry years in a row and robust <br />population growth, especially along Colorado's Front Range. Another cause is not so <br />obvious: inefficient water use. <br />We waste water. We pour it on bluegrass and other foliage that cannot live here naturally <br />because of aridity. We use more water than is needed for a wide range of indoor uses, <br />from toilets to dishwashers to showers. We lose a lot of water in municipal water "supply <br />systems. We fail to re -use water when we can, after it has been used once. We fail to <br />take maximum advantage of opportunities to use surface and groundwater conjunctively, <br />storing surplus surface supplies in wet years in aquifers for retrieval in dry years. Our <br />water providers do not always coordinate their water supply programs with each other, <br />resulting in duplication of facilities and plans. And, discouraged by our state's outdated <br />"use it or lose it" dogma, our.cities don't work enough with farmers and ranchers to <br />increase irrigation water use efficiency, where a portion of water salvaged could flow to <br />the cities. In short, we still act as if water were not the valuable resource that it is in this <br />and place we call home. <br />Water usage.figures, stated in gross gallons per capita per day (GPCD), while riot a <br />perfect measure of an area's conservation water use efficiency, suggest that along the <br />Front Range we can do much more to stretch our water resources. For example, water <br />use in the Denver metro area is well over 200 gallons per capita per day. Residents in <br />Tucson, Arizona, use roughly 160 GPCD. San Texas, used 143 GPCD in the <br />year 2001 and is shooting for 140 GPCD in 2008 and 132 GPCD in 2015. Santa Fe, <br />New Mexico, and El Paso, Texas, are also under 160 GPCD and shooting for lower <br />targets. Experiences from these other western cities reveal that we can live and prosper <br />in the Southwest using less water than we do now. <br />Moving Forward: <br />Water conservation is a key to enhancing our water use efficiency. At the core of water <br />conservation are rate structures that communicate the full cost of incremental supplies of <br />water, thereby encouraging water users to use less water in light of the cost of the water <br />supplies saved. Inclining block or inverted rate structures are a good way of encouraging <br />cost -based conservation of water. <br />4 Daily Camera (June 6, 2002) <br />S Some communities proudly display their healthy bluegrass lawns, while others are actually required by <br />covenant to plant and maintain bluegrass turf in front and back yards. <br />6 See Hydrosphere et. al., Metropolitan Water Supply Investigation (MWSI), 1999. <br />7 Maddeus et. al. "Qualitative Review of Water Conservation Program (May 2001 at 2 -6. <br />8 Craig O'Hare, "City of Santa Fe Per Capita Water Demands: Comparison with Other Cities," August 27, <br />2001. <br />9 http : / /www.saws.drg <br />io http: / /www.epwu.org <br />Pa <br />