Colorado Water June 2005

• Year: 2005
• Title: Colorado Water
• Author: Water Center of Colorado State University
• Description: JUNE 2005 Issue
• Publications - Doc Type: Newsletter

Members of the group found they
had similar challenges for water and
energy management:
• Reliability (supply)
• Cost (supply and quality)
• Quality (for various uses)
• Environmental Impacts
They also agreed that there were
similarities in policy context:
• Historic supply -side orientation
• Infrastructure is important
• Huge end -use efficiency oppor-
tunities
• New technologies are changing
our notions of optimal scale
• Market distortions and discon-
nect between pricing and cost
Bill Horak (Assoc Hydrologist, Central Re-
gion, USGS), Rod Kuharich (Exec. Dir., Colo-
rado Water Conservation Board), and Wayne
Vanderschuere (Colorado Springs Utilities)
visit during break.
NOTE: The Energy Policy Act of 1992 established
national standards set for plumbing fixtures, although
many states had already adopted similar standards on
their own. (The Act sets minimum water efficiency
standards at the federal level for plumbing fixtures.)
Outcome and Action Plan
Four major topic areas were identified:
1. Policy and legal issues
2. Technology issues (from infrastructure to treatment/
filtering technology, end -use technologies, etc.)
"During the last decade, the arena of long -term
water resources planning has been broadened
to include conservation as a promising manage-
ment alternative. Water supplies are currently
undergoing the same change which took place in
the energy industry during the 1970s."
Metropolitan Water District, 1990 Water Management Plan
3. Economic issues (capital
and operating cost factors,
life -cycle cost/benefit, pric-
ing, etc.)
4. Science issues (from
hydrology and impacts of cli-
mate change to water quality
issues and measurement of
pollutants)
Management and planning
opportunities include:
• Fully integrated man-
agement strategies (building
on integrated resource man-
agement efforts in energy
and water management,
develop management strate-
gies that incorporate water, wastewater, stormwater,
energy, and other elements)
Use of portfolio approaches for management
(beyond diversification, to include cost/benefit and
risk/return information)
Planning and forecasting (understanding both en-
ergy and water demands — as a function of price and
what people are willing to pay, and as it related to
technology developments, particularly on the end -
use side)
The group reached consensus that further effort is war-
ranted in each of the topical areas identified above, and
agreed to address them through specific case studies and
further research and publication of analysis of
More Information
Participants can access more background informa-
tion on NREL's Energy Analysis Web site at http:
Hwww.nrel.gov/ analysis /workshops /water — nexus-
workshop.html, as well as the presentations at http:
Hwww.nrel.gov/ analysis /workshops /water — nexus-
pres.html.
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