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somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 to 10 million dollars this coming year for all new programs in the state. When you take that 8 to 10 million dollars and weigh it against the needs that we have in water and other areas, there is simply no way that we are going to be able to move forward in a significant way unless we d9 something different on the budget front. For those of you who are familiar with the Burch-Orr Amendment, that I is probably going to make it more difficult for us to proceed in the water areas, because it is a limitation that applies ~ot only to state government but local governments. I think some of you may have read recently that the Denver Water Board questioned whether that would have an impact on the construction of the Foothills. So I think we have to reassess our strategies in the funding areas. Even if we want to proceed with the revolving fund and the projects that Larry has mentioned, not to include at the moment the federal projects, it would be very difficult f9r us to proceed unless we get a new source of funding such as the severance tax. Perhaps the legis- lature or the people of the state ought to create an exception for water. Maybe water ought to be put in a different category. Maybe some of the surplus that is created ought to go exclusively into water projects. I really don't know the answers to these questions, but I think we have. to come up with sOme proposals and gain sOme acceptance for those proposals as soon as possible. The legislature will convene in January. As you know, they are going to be confronted with hundreds of different pieces of legislation. I think the water issue is of such importance that it ought to have the highest priority and we ought to collectively try to figure out how we want to proceed. Believe me, just taking 10 percent of these federal projects would involve an enormous expenditure to the state. If it is for irrigation projects where we are unlikely to recoup the amount that we are advanc- ing as the state's 10 percent share, any sort of reliance on the general fund would be probably impossible unless, again, we make an exception in the water area. So I would urge this board and members of the audience who have a great interest in this to work collectively in the immediate future tp try to do something about this. Mr. Chairman, one last point I want to bring to the attention of the Board, in the water policy area, is that the Carter Administration has I proceeded to set up a mechanism to implement the federal water policy that they talked about. They are very serious about this. They have set up 19 task forces to deal with these various elements. For in- stance, they have a task force on cost sharing. None of these task forces include any state participation. There is no mechanism whatso- ever under the current procedure to involve the states or discuss these matters with the states or with lOcal governments. All of the previous complaints that we have had relative to Our not -8-