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somewhere else. That's how the relative value of water has changed in the last decade. If you understand water, you understand all the fascinating interplays and relationships, There are going to be debates. There are court cases going on right now regarding who owns the water. The beauty of Western America is its resounding af- firmation of private property rights. That's what we believe. An important part of the debate in the next few years is em- bracing the reality that there's going to be water produced, and that water can be cleaned at reasonable cost where it fits within the context of the economies of the western states. We need the water, and the drought is going to force us to do the right thing. Everybody who understands western politics, western interstate relationships, recognizes that water is a valuable commodity. When I spoke at the Ruckelshaus Institute in Wyoming, I commented that water and disposal should not be in the same sentence. Water is much too valuable a commod- ity. Certainly we won't use every acre -foot or every barrel of it in a beneficial way. `Beneficial use' is a term that people in the water world use; we won't beneficially use every bit of it, but we're darn sure going to start using more than we're using today — because we have to. The beauty of a conference like this is that it brings people with different mindsets — some speaking in barrels and some speaking in acre -feet — together in a room to allow them to start talking about how we deal with this. As Mr. Yates said, this is one of the all -time fun things because it can be a win -win. We must use the technology that's emerging in our country and worldwide. 10 American resourcefulness We have the opportunity in the West to have that new water. We're going to build the storage. We're also going to use produced water in a beneficial way. Senator Domenici of New Mexico heads a produced -water subcommittee, and the subject is going to be debated in the Senate and the House. I think that's a discussion we all ought to be looking at because there might be ways to use that vehicle to enhance the technology and the demonstration capability. One of the things that I hope will come out of this conference is a message to these agencies. We have to have some interac- tions between the different agencies. In Wyoming, it took us 25 years to permit a water project that we saw for the first time last fall — imagine, 25 years! I can tell you that Mr. Yates and a major oil company can't wait 25 years for permits to get the job done. At the same time we must exercise environmental responsibil- ity. We have grazing permits on the Colorado/Wyoming line, and when I go to some well areas where there've been pipe- lines, I can see the little grooves where the seeder has passed over but there's no grass, no seed because the reclamation wasn't done, or — if it was done — it wasn't done with thought. American farmers are the greatest farmers in the history of the world. If we can't figure out a way with water and seed and using our heads to do reclamation, that's our fault. However, the beauty of BLM/Fish & Wildlife Service/EPA interaction is that if people put their heads together, they can find magic in this opportunity of produced water. Correction The project described in "SCADA Employed in Middle Rio Grande Valley to Help Deliver Water Efficiently ", which appeared on page 10 in the April 2006 issue of Colorado Water, is funded in part by the Middle Rio Grande Endan- gered Species Act Collaborative Program and the New Mexico State Interstate Stream Commission. The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District Office in Albuquerque and its Division field offices provided their full support in planning and implementation of the project. The project is described in more detail by the FY 2004 Project Report to the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, March 2006, prepared by Dr. Ramchand Oad, with assistance from researchers at Colorado State University and in collaboration with S.S. Papadopulos & Associates, Inc. The support of these people and organizations is gratefully acknowledged.