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Water Supply Reserve Account—Application Form <br /> Revised December 2011 <br /> $1,152,240. The damage could have been largely avoided if proposed hydrants were already in place. A <br /> secondary effect of the large-scale Buy & Dry practices in Crowley County is that revegetation was spotty after <br /> water sales took place,resulting in weedy fields at high risk for fire during dry conditions. <br /> • The water activity directly benefits private and public entities, Ordway Cattle Feeders,LLC, Crowley County <br /> government, local farmers,ranchers,business owners,and the residents of Crowley County and its environs. <br /> • Keeping the Feedyard in business benefits the economy of the entire State of Colorado. Please see the <br /> Addendum to the application for detail. <br /> Multiple Basins <br /> • Although not directly related to water management, the project positively affects the economy of several basins, <br /> as detailed in an addendum to the application. Municipalities in multiple basins purchased the bulk of the water <br /> rights of Crowley County. This water activity stabilizes the viability of a company that has largely replaced the <br /> economic benefit that was supplied by those lost 43,000 acres of irrigated agriculture. <br /> • The 850 acre feet of water conserved by this delivery method becomes available to Front Range water users. <br /> b. The project will directly benefit Crowley County,Ordway Feedyard,LLC and Ordway Cattle Feeders,LLC,who <br /> are collaborating on the combination of grants and loan. It will indirectly benefit numerous water interests, <br /> including shareholders of the Colorado Canal,Front Range municipalities,Lake Henry and Lake Meredith <br /> shareholders,and the Pueblo Board of Water Works. <br /> c. The water activity helps implement projects and processes identified as helping meet Colorado's future water <br /> needs,and/or addresses the gap areas between available water supply and future need as identified in SWSI or a <br /> roundtable's basin-wide water needs assessment. <br /> • The project frees up 850 acre feet of water that was being lost to transit and evaporation. This water becomes <br /> available for interbasin or intrabasin use. <br /> • It frees up an estimated 14 acre feet of potable water that becomes available to other water users in and out of the <br /> basin. <br /> • This water activity addresses a water gap that was identified by the Arkansas Basin Roundtable in their 2012 <br /> annual report, as quoted here: "The impact of drought on the availability of augmentation water to support <br /> agriculture has brought into sharp focus a dependence on fully consumable,municipal return flow as a source. <br /> The municipal return flow is relied upon to meet the future municipal demands of the holder of the water rights; <br /> therefore,to the extent such flows have been assumed to be available for agricultural use, our agricultural water <br /> supply gap is higher than originally thought." <br /> • Addressing the gap by reducing evaporative loss will become ever more imperative as Colorado water needs <br /> increase. The historic water supply for this entity shrinks in volume by 66%due to transit and evaporative loss. <br /> Tier 2: Facilitating Water Activity Implementation <br /> d. Funding from this Account will reduce the uncertainty that the water activity will be implemented. For this <br /> criterion the applicant should discuss how receiving funding from the Account will make a significant difference <br /> in the implementation of the water activity(i.e.,how will receiving funding enable the water activity to move <br /> forward or the inability obtaining funding elsewhere). <br /> Applicants explored funding opportunities with DOLA and with CDPHE. Both said that they would like to <br /> support the project but have no available funding. <br /> 10 <br />