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. water into the South Platte Basin through the Otero Pumping Station, operated jointly with Colorado Springs, Aurora's request for a 40-year contract includes a 10,000 acre-foot storage pool in Lake Pueblo and a 10,000 acre-foot contract exchange that would let it move water from Lake Pueblo to Twin Lakes without a drop hitting the Arkansas River in the reach in between. If Reclamation denies the request, Aurora has an option to buy a gravel pit storage site east of Pueblo, The Southeastern District raised the question of Reclamation's authority to enter contracts with Aurora in 2001, citing several previous legal cases to back its conclusion that the federal agency has limited authority to issue contracts with outsiders. In 2002, Reclamation Commissioner John Keys III testified against PSOP, saying it limited Reclamation's contract authority. Two years later, Keys responded to the 2001 letter by stating flatly "such authority exists" without citing any legal references, A follow-up letter from Regional Director Maryanne Bach in August 2003 reiterated Keys' position, but cited no law, Reclamation's model will take into account all legal agreements, historical diversions, transit loss, water rights priorities and voluntary flow programs on the river. While the river level would drop, there must still be enough water left in the river to maintain certain flows at the La Junta river gauge, So far, modeling shows Lake Pueblo's average level would fall whether Aurora is granted temporary storage rights or not. The average lake level would drop more if Aurora were not granted storage, for the simple fact that its water for exchanges would be stored elsewhere, . Project Could Aid Fountain Creek Plan: A plan to preserve land along the Fountain Creek corridor could dovetail with a suggestion to combine flood control and water reuse. Great Outdoors Colorado has funded a $427,000 conservation easement on Fountain Creek as part of the Peak to Prairie program. The program is an effort by the Nature Conservancy, Colorado Open Lands, the Army Corps of Engineers and local government to link Cheyenne Mountain, Fort Carson and state public lands in Chico Basin with a buffer zone against development. The project eventually could encompass 100,000 acres. In the meantime, Reclamation is studying a plan based on three studies by the V,S, Army Corps of Engineers from the late 1970s and early 1980s that would result in the development of a new flood- control project on Fountain Creek if it met the goals of flood drainage reduction or ecosystem restoration. The result would be an alternative to the proposed Southern Delivery System that would tie flood control with water reuse, delaying the need and reducing the size of a water delivery pipeline proposed by Colorado Springs. Kansas Rejects Request to Back Off River Pact: Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has said he won't give Nebraska a break on the Republican River agreement that determines how much water Kansas gets from the waterway, despite a plea from that state's congressman and former Cornhuskers coach, Tom Osborne, Kline said he talked to Osborne and staffers in Attorney General Jon Bruning's office and told them the state won't agree to altering the agreement signed by Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska that ended a decades-long dispute of water allocation. Last month, Osborne wrote Kline and Colorado Attorney General John Suthers asking them to reconsider implementing the terms of the 2003 settlement because of "unforeseen circumstances that have occurred since it was negotiated," Suthers' office said it was drafting its response, . Osborne said the agreement didn't take into account the effect of a multiyear drought that has reduced the amount of water available in Kansas and Nebraska. 25