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<br />indication of the conditions. As of last week, the winter wheat crop currently is listed as 86% at <br />fair or worse; 46% is fair and 21 % poor and 19% is listed as very poor. When you are looking at <br />pasture and range conditions 95% is fair or poor and 32% is fair and 34% poor and 29% very <br />poor. This does give you an indication that from the agriculture prospective that the dry <br />conditions are starting to have a major impact on the industry. The good news is that not all of <br />agriculture is dependent on rainfall, but the reservoir storage is down and the amount of water <br />available for irrigation is certainly going to be questionable. The Governor sent a letter to U. S. <br />Secretary of Agriculture yesterday asking for a disaster designation for the entire state. That is <br />something that is normally dealt with on a county by county basis. This will be very helpful in <br />that it will make available federal agriculture disaster programs that are available through the <br />U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. That will be very helpful to us that it is on a statewide instead of <br />county by county basis. <br /> <br />One of the major problems with the livestock industry in Colorado is that they are grazing a lot <br />on federal land -- both BLM and the U.S. Forest Service. Those allotments have been curtailed <br />and (inaudible) the industry who has now fed their livestock throughout the winter months, and <br />used their hay and feed, and are ready to turn out, and there's no place to turn out. And that's an <br />immediate problem where these people are not going to have feed or hay or resources to <br />maintain those herds that have nothing to eat. <br /> <br />Tourism <br /> <br />All areas of the State are, except the Southwest area, are all expecting normal tourism conditions, <br />although water levels will be lowered. There aren't any indications yet of any severe impact at <br />this point and time but that could change over the next few months. The other area we are <br />mainly concerned with are the wildfires. In 2000 the Southwest was hit fairly well affecting <br />tourism in that region. <br /> <br />Wildlife <br /> <br />Bears are out already looking for food because ofthe dry conditions. Fishing will be good early <br />in the springnthey may have salvage operations. Hatcheries are dependent on stream flow <br />especially the (inaudible) water hatcheries and even the cold water hatcheries dependent on <br />ground water and some on springs. In the past dry spells, hatcheries have had more of an impact <br />than most others. <br /> <br />Economic Impacts <br /> <br />In the process of putting together and economic task forcenasking for input from the School of <br />Mines. <br /> <br />Joe Lambert--Offtce of Energy Management & Conservation <br /> <br />The issue of energy supply is pretty well identified, as to whether there is any concentration of <br />usage of what hydro-power we do use in Coloradonwe'll have to find out. Equally and more <br />important the integrity of the transmission capability around the state is something we'll have to <br />look at very carefully together with the fire plan folks. Losing big transmission lines in a fire <br />