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destructive, Colorado water law does not bar such use provided the appropriator can and does <br />apply the water in a reasonably efficient manner to achieve the intended beneficial use. <br />C. Colorado has not adopted a public interest test by which to measure an <br />appropriator's intended beneficial use. <br />Colorado receives only 16.5 inches of rain, on average and its agricultural community <br />consumes over 88% of all water used. League of Women Voters of Colorado, COLORADO <br />WATER, Denver, CO (1992), pp. 6 and 27 (attached hereto as Appendix B). If all irrigators <br />laser - leveled their fields, used drip irrigation systems, and grew something other than alfalfa (one <br />of the most water consumptive crops around), there would be more of Colorado's scarce water <br />resource for others to use. But Colorado law does not so require. Nor does Coloado law bar the <br />use of municipal water supplies for watering sidewalks and streets. I Nothing in Colorado law <br />prevents developers from obtaining decrees to supply water to housing tracts with covenants that <br />favor, if not require, the planting of highly consumptive bluegrass lawns when other less water- <br />consumptive grasses are available. Colorado law also allows ski areas to appropriate water to <br />make snow so that people can ski on a variety of terrain at times of the year where there would <br />be no snow naturally. For example, the Arapahoe Basin Ski Area has a water right to allow <br />diversion of 349 acre -feet of water from mid - September through March with the goal of <br />providing year round skiing, including a summer race camp. White River National Forest, <br />Dillon Ranger District, Record of Decision, Arapaho Basin Master Development Plan, Final <br />Environmental Impact Statement, (1999), pp. 1 -2 and 12 -3 (attached hereto as Appendix C). <br />1 Colorado does have a statute that requires certain municipalities to adopt plans for the <br />conservation of water, but these plans are not enforceable, nor did the legislature require <br />municipalities to use their water supplies in the most efficient manner possible. §37 -60 -126, <br />C.R.S. (2001). <br />G <br />