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farms; or 3.) Improve the irrigation infrastructure efficiencies to the owned farming <br />operations, and purchase water shares currently available for leased farms. <br />Alternative #1 <br />One course of action considered was the Do Nothing alternative. By not providing <br />additional adequate and reliable water supplies to their crops, this alternative would result <br />in a degradation of crop yields, continued loss of farm land available to produce their <br />products, decrease in the quality of the marketed produce, loss of confidence in Petrocco <br />Farms by their supermarket and food service customers, decrease in their business <br />profitability, and eventual loss of the century old farming operation. This alternative was <br />considered unacceptable. <br />Alternative #2 <br />The second alternative considered was to acquire the available water shares that are <br />adjacent, or have historically been applied, to existing Petrocco farms. This alternative <br />meets all the goals of the project. By acquiring these shares, it provides a more reliable <br />water supply for their future farming operations in the specific fields and will also stop <br />the dry up of farmland in those locations. The estimated project cost for this alternative <br />is $925,000 including planning, engineering and transaction fees. The cost estimate for <br />this alternative is shown in Table 1 below. <br />Table 1 <br />Alternative #2 Cost Estimate <br />Fulton Ditch Shares <br />$570,000 <br />New Cache La Poudre Irrigating Co. Shares <br />240,000 <br />Cache La Poudre Reservoir Co. Shares <br />90,000 <br />Total Water Purchase <br />$900,000 <br />Feasibility Study <br />10,000 <br />Water Engineering <br />7,500 <br />Transaction Fees <br />7,500 <br />TOTAL PROJECT COST <br />$925,000 <br />Alternative #2 provides an additional 156 acre -feet of consumptive use water (260.7 ac.ft <br />(total new water purchased) x 0.6 (flood irrigation efficiency`) = 156 ac. ft.). Therefore, <br />the total project cost per acre -foot of new consumptive water is: $925,000/156 ac.ft. <br />$5,929/ac.ft. <br />* The current flood irrigation method used by Petrocco Farms generally provides a 60% <br />efficiency of water use, per TZA Water Engineers, Inc. <br />