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<br />Drought Plan <br /> <br />We have recently updated the plan that was originally written back in '81. Since that time the <br />plan has seen partial activation, but there has never been a condition serious enough to activate <br />the entire plan. One of the upgrades of the plan is that we have made an executive summary that <br />sums it all up. The plan has 4 components: monitoring, assessment, mitigation and response. <br />This group, the Water Availability Task Force, is the monitoring element of the plan. That's an <br />ongoing element. We meet at least on a quarterly basis or on a monthly basis like we have lately <br />when things get dry. This Task Force will monitor the status of the water resources in Colorado, <br />the climate, the weather, and monitor any impacts that drought may have on Colorado. In <br />addition, we will recommend any necessary action that needs to be taken to address the drought <br />impacts. That will get us to Phase II ofthe plan where there are significant impacts to mobilize <br />the impact task forces. This is where we are today. Overall, there are 10 different task forces <br />that address impacts to various sectors of Colorado's economy and environment. We have a <br />municipal water task force, wild life, wild fire, agriculture, tourism, health and energy, economic <br />impact, including the water availability task force, a review and reporting task force that <br />emphasizes the information from all the task forces. The Drought task Force is made up of the <br />Water Availability Task Force and the Chairs of the Impact Task Forces that attend the Drought <br />meetings. <br /> <br />The goal of the Impact Task Force is to gather impacts across the State to evaluate what we are <br />facing and any mitigation actions we need to take. That gets fmaled up through the Review and <br />Reporting Task Force who reviews that information and passes it to the Governor and also <br />develops media talking points in situations. If things get to the point where we need to initiate a <br />response from the State, an interagency coordinating group will be formulated and that's made <br />up of cabinet level members of state government that are assigned to handle the impacts from <br />drought in their respective areas. <br /> <br />If it gets to a point where we need an effective response, that group would be responsible for it. <br />Meeting the need through general state sources and also going to the federal government for <br />additional resources. Page 22, "the action page" is the most important page in the plan. It sums <br />up what the drought plan is all about and the implementation of it. In the summary the purpose <br />of the plan is just to have an effective and systematic means for the State of Colorado to respond <br />to the water shortages in Colorado--especially long term. <br /> <br />Don Ament's Comments <br /> <br />One of the big impacts of Drought on the state is our ability to produce food. The agricultural <br />community will continue to remind everyone as to what is going on with the land as Colorado is <br />the third largest contributor to this economy with the food that is produced for our consumers in <br />Colorado. Most fanners have had letters from their irrigation companies stating that the <br />reservoirs are not going to refill this year so plant accordingly. Greg and I like to work a lot with <br />the compact with down stream states with rivers that run out of Colorado, and we are very much <br />concerned for instance on the S. Platte where we have probably 3,000 wells that pump water for <br />irrigation, not only for agriculture but also for municipalities. When we can't meet our compact <br />obligations that sets us into another whole change of events that are down stream with other <br />States watching also. It is a defmite compact issue of concern when we have a dry river. <br />