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. . IRP, the final Board Resource Statement was supported by a general consensus among those groups which had participated throughout the process. . The Scope of Work called for a three year project. The reason for the lengthy time frame was that the substantive work of the IRP was to be done by existing staff in various di visions of Denver Water at the same time they were performing their normal duties. Using existing staff would maximize the budget and build a knowledge base within Denver Water. Consulting assistance was retained for advisory expertise, technical guidance, and the development of a computer model of Denver's collection system. . With the completion of the Scope of Work, effort turned to creating resource decision guidelines and evaluation criteria. Resource options were to be weighed and assessed against the criteria to determine how well each option conformed to the guidelines. Guidelines and evaluation criteria went through several iterations as staff struggled to find the proper blend of policy and quantitative precision. The effort led to an understanding of the myriad of complex and sometimes competing or conflicting policy objectives underlying various resource alternatives. Though the guidelines and evaluation criteria never came to play the explicit empirical or quantitative role first envisioned, they remained underlying values and guideposts demarcating the boundaries of various Board policy decisions. All participants knew, for example, that for any alternative to be viewed as realistic, it had to pass the test of providing a safe drinking water supply to Denver Water's customers, thereby meeting or exceeding all applicable drinking water standards. . . . The "homework" of the IRP was accomplished in Tasks 3, 4,5, and 6. Task 3 focused on Denver Water's Treated Water System; the existing state of that system was described, and then specific investigations of future issues pertinent to the IRP analysis were conducted. Such examinations included a look at system losses, hydraulic considerations such as pressure levels, and future distribution needs. It was determined, for example, that while Denver Water currently has excess treatment capacity, the build- out of the Denver service area would require an additional increment of Denver's largest and most modern treatment plant, Foothills. . Task 4 described Denver Water's existing water collection system, and then looked at various options to add water to the system. To avoid missing an opportunity, staff members, drawing on a wide range of input from outside sources, had brainstorming sessions that produced over 200 possible projects without regard to cost, feasibility, or other limitations. The options were then subjected to a "fatal flaw" screening, with 44 dropping out. Thirty-four of the possible projects were moved to a metro area water study being conducted by the State of Colorado. The remaining 154 options were divided into five functional categories. A few select options which best represented each category were analyzed for water yield, cost, and environmental impacts before being presented to the Board. The rationale was that if the Board selected one of the representative options from a functional category, all of the other feasible options from that category would then require analysis and presentation to the Board for consideration. . . . 9