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As far as irrigation, on a broad basis in the basin about 80 percent is used for pumping for crops, about 20 percent apparently is used by riparian trees for evapotranspiration. Those trees as well as pumps in the alluvium are really the short term effect that produces river flow or not, the way we understand it at the moment. As far as fish, clearly we need to know the relationship between ground- water levels and the amount of fish habitat to an- swer the question, what is the minimum habitat that's going to be needed to sustain these fishes into the future. Part of that that we need to understand is about baby fish. That's the most sensitive life stage and yet those fish can move very long distances. We've learned that even a three inch minnow may need 5 to 25 km of river in order to carry out its life cycle. That's a good and a bad thing. They need a lot of river, but they can also quickly recolonize. Overall, it seems clear that we need to seek a balance between water uses for agriculture production and na- tive fishes and other stream and riparian biota because the future of both of these things hangs in this balance. Dynamic Process is Key to Good Dialogue by Luis Garcia, Professor and Acting Chair Colorado State University, Dept. of Civil Engineering It's a pleasure to be here. I'm here to talk about user - centered water research as a way to connect university research with the needs of Colorado wa- ter managers. As you know, over the many years that Robert Ward has been Director of the Colorado Water Resources Research Institute ( CWRRI), he has always advocated for the university to be en- gaged in the relevant water issues of the state. This is not always easy to do, but, about ten years ago, Robert approached me with a golden opportunity. The opportunity was a project that was sponsored by CWRRI dealing with a model called SAMSON that had been developed with partial funding from CWRRI but had little support from the water com- munity. As a result, SAMSON became what I call a model looking for a user: However, the SAMSON project provided valuable lessons which Robert wanted to use to develop better methods for addressing user needs. Conse- quently, we began a new South Platte project with the idea of trying to meet a specific need: develop- ing data and tools that could help water users deal with issues related to augmentation requirements. Funding from the Institute was combined with money from Cooperative Extension, and a panel of water users was convened. This was the first point in my career where I had the opportunity to ask people exactly what their needs were, develop a priority list of those needs, and come up with some strategies to address the needs. A steering committee of representatives from water user groups was created for ongoing discussions and adjustment of priorities. Over time, this user - centered process proved its worth. Now, for over ten years, every water user group has had some input, and we have developed, by consen- sus, a very open approach to model develop- ment. As Justice Hobbs mentioned in his presenta- tion today, the drought of the early 21S1 century forced the state to change the way that we were dealing with augmentation. Augmentation plans now have to go to water court. As you know, water court can be very expensive. I'm happy to report that the process that CWRRI helped to develop has yielded a set of tools that have been adopted for approximately 75% or 80% of the wells in the South Platte, vastly reduc- ing the amount of potentially costly courtroom time. The process was driven by the water users, and it focused on the problem rather than on