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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cooperation push "Deliberate, multiple and cooperative ventures are better than saying no," Treece said. "That will fail when we hit another 2002. Then we'll have a crisis and you don't make good decisions in crisis. That's when we'll lose our water,lI Twin forces have been driving the recently cooperative East SlopelWestem Slope water discussions. The decade-old and titanic battle over developing the Homestake II reservoir need Red Cliff demonstrated how expensive legal battles over developing water can become. The other driving factor is the continuing demand for water created by population growth. Western Slope counties have several arrows in their quiver that can be used to address removal of water from their area. Homestake II upheld the county's regulatory ability, under which water development projects fall. There re also state and federal regulations to consider. Counties, such as Eagle, have also begun banding together with other counties under intergovernmental agreements to jointly review water projects. These agreements may be the wave ofthe future, said Long, because they provide some strength in numbers. Eagle County's agreement is now in the draft phase. "We're better off in a group than alone," Long said. "Mayberry on steroids' Long characterized the bulging communities of Eagle, Summit and Grand Counties as "Mayberry on steroids," saying the burgeoning tax base has created the ability to bring the right resources to water discussions. "We can do battle now with these (Front Range) people," he said. But the future of the EastemlWestern Slope water projects may be modeled after the Eagle River Memorandum of Understanding forged after the water war over Homestake II. It features compromise instead of conflict. It requires future water development projects by the cities of Colorado Springs and Aurora in the Eagle River watershed to be shared two-thirds, one-third with Eagle County water interests. In return, the cities dropped many of their future water development projects. There's a move "afoot to have Denver become join the agreement. Instead of extracting hundreds ofthousands of acre-feet from the Colorado River basin and facing expensive water fights from the Western Slope, the city is looking at a cooperative venture with Eagle County water users. Instead of building a Dillon-sized reservoir at Wolcott, and pumping water to the Front Range, the city would build a much smaller reservoir and release its water into the Eagle River and trade that for water elsewhere. The city is studying the measure. "We need to make sure everyone's talking and understanding each other instead oftrying to cut the best deal," said Long. . . . "