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<br />farmers within the basin so that no one farmer has to put up with that <br />burden for an extended period of time. <br /> <br />In addition, there can be municipal first-use agreements. The <br />proposal has been forwarded recently by the Barr lake ditch companies <br />that their facilities be somehow incorporated into the South Platte <br />municipal water supply system as an example of a municipal first-use <br />system. That is a third category of municipal-agricultural use that <br />we feel has an enormous potential to benefit both the agricultural <br />sector and the municipal sector. <br /> <br />Water use efficiency -- we have talked about this before. <br />Municipal water conservation is certainly something every individual <br />community is looking at. It has an additional value if you consider <br />it from an integrated system concept; if through cooperation and <br />integration of water supply systems individual communities could have <br />an opportunity to sell any' excess water that they may have through <br />conservation or, conversely, buy any additional water supplies they <br />need that may be gained through municipal conservation. That would <br />provide more of a market which may provide additional incentive for <br />communities to look at water conservation. <br /> <br />Agricultural conservation -- certainly another area -- when you <br />have more than two million acre-feet a year being diverted, small <br />savings in the amount diverted and the amount consumed in certain <br />circumstances can result in significant savings to municipalities. <br /> <br />The fourth category is what I call the actual integration of <br />existing systems. It can take place in several ways. You can link <br />existing water supply systems and thereby gain certain benefits. The <br />proposed gravity pipeline from Carter Lake to the northern Denver <br />Metro area is an example of such a linkage. What can it do? It can <br />provide a way of moving available water that may be for sale in one <br />area into another area of the Front Range. It can provide an <br />alternate path of diversion for a portion of Denver's West Slope water <br />rights. Through the Windy Gap portion of Denver's Moffat and Frasier <br />Valley water rights could, with minor facility modifications, be <br />diverted down at the Windy Gap diversion facility and then back into <br />the northern metro area via the Carter Lake pipeline. That could have <br />the benefit of allowing better management of water on the Frasier <br />basin, increased yields to the East Slope, better instream flow <br />protection to the West Slope, and increased energy production through <br />the Colorado-Big Thompson hydropower facilities. <br /> <br />Coordination of existing systems -- Coordinated operation of <br />reservoir systems.is another example of integrating existing systems; <br />for example, Aurora's Spiney Mountain Reservoir currently planned to <br />store water diverted under Aurora's Homestake projects, those existing <br />and those proposed, and in addition storage space to occasionally <br />capture South Platte flood flows. The full yield of the Spiney <br />Mountain project could be realized at an earlier point by changing a <br />portion of Denver's Two Forks rights so that they can be stored in <br />Spiney Mountain. That would increase the yield of this project not <br />over and above what it would eventually get when Homestake is fully <br />built out, but would provide for an earlier attainment of that portion <br />of the yield without significant facilities construction. <br /> <br />30 <br />