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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE DAILY SENTINEL Thursday. January 29, 2004 01.29.04 State likely to need 60"10 more water by year 2030 By ERIN McINTYRE The Daily Sentinel Colorado will need at least the equivalent of 47 more Green Mountain Reservoirs of water by 2030, initial findings ofthe Statewide Water Supply Initiative show. A series of 22 meetings with the public and water officials, surveys from nearly 170 water providers, urban water-use demand studies, projected growth numbers, demographic studies and weather data provided the information for the estimates, compiled by Colorado Water Conservation Board staff. The initial projections, presented to the Colorado Water Board on Wednesday, indicate the state will need 60 percent more water by 2030, about 708,000 acre-feet, enough water to supply a city of 2.5 million people, said Rick Brown, CWC B project manager. The study, called the Statewide Water Supply Initiative (SWSI), is charged with determining Colorado's water needs and resources and presenting possible options for satisfying those demands. " ,: Eighty percent of the state's increased demand will come from the metropolitan areas in the South Platte and Arkansas river basins. The Colorado River Basin is expected to need another 75,000 acre-feet of water by 2030, a 58 percent increase from current use. While the Gunnison River Basin's projected demands are 18,000 acre-feet, that amount is an 81 percent increase from its current usage. Staff used state demographer's data to project the needs in each ofthe state's eight river basins. They used that information to make projections in each county, while also examining water- provider estimates for service in their areas. Then staffers compiled data from drought surveys and the Division of Water Resources to compile with the population and use projections, Brown said. To figure out how much water each county was projected to use, staffers compiled a per-capital water use average for people living in each county, because people living in different areas use different amounts of water.