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<br />1. Denver will continue to meet its charter obligation of providing <br />water to the citizens of the City and County. However -- and <br />this is an important change -- Denver will also extend the same <br />commitments of reliability and service to those suburban <br />distributors that it had previously contracted to serve. The <br />Water Board has offered to renegotiate contracts and expects that <br />the first of those new contracts will be executed within the next <br />few weeks. <br /> <br />2. Denver will turn its attention first to a plan that will address <br />the water needs of its defined service area. That is a <br />significant challenge and that is its primary responsibility. <br />But it is different from the historic role of water service for <br />an ever~xpanding City of Denver. <br /> <br />3. As it moves to meet its own service needs, Denver will remain <br />open to possibilities for cooperation and maximizing efficiency <br />of water delivery and development in the Metropolitan area. We <br />can and will allow Denver's water system to work for the benefit <br />of others, so long as Denver's existing rights and abilities to <br />develop and deliver water to its customers are not impaired. <br /> <br />4. Finally, Denver will assist in planning for the development of <br />water supplies to serve the entire Metropolitan area. Denver has <br />a reservoir of data and expertise not available elsewhere. Over <br />the next several years, we will work with others to see where <br />system efficiencies can be enhanced and basin-wide water <br />administration improved. In cooperation with others, we will <br />seek ways to make more water available from the existing <br />overlapping or duplicate water supply systems. We will not <br />presume to plan for others, but we will participate in <br />representing the interests of our customers and search for <br />solutions that can meet our needs while meeting those of our <br />neighbors. <br /> <br />CLINTON/WOLFORD IS AN EXAMPLE OF THIS POLICY <br /> <br />Denver has recently completed 18 months of negotiations with <br />Grand County, Summit County, the Northern Colorado Conservancy <br />District, AMAX, and the Colorado River Water Conservation District, <br />which may in part illustrate our future role. Although these <br />arrangements are enormously complicated, in essence, the deal just <br />completed makes additional water available to Summit County and to <br />Grand County, finances the Wolford Mountain Water Storage Project for <br />the Colorado River Water Conservation District, and makes 12,000 acre- <br />feet of additional water available to Denver on an annual basis. The <br />underlying assumption behind the many months of negotiation was that <br />detailed and technical analysis of the water rights and water systems <br />of the negotiating parties would ultimately yield better understanding <br />and workable concepts to increase yield for everyone concerned. All <br />parties had either a water supply problem of a financial problem, or <br />both. In the end, all the problems were dealt with, and almost all <br />resolved completely: <br /> <br />1. AMAX sold its small reservoir to Summit County, which uses that <br />water to repay Denver for the consumptive use of Denver water <br /> <br />19 <br />