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u I ..J..J..J..J SENATOR LOCI<E: "I'd like to come up here and express some of the ideas that "Ie have been eJcpress- ing at some of our local water meetings. I think this, it is really a pleasure, you know, to have the Water Conservation Board meet among the areas that are above what we normally call the pumping situation. I think it has been eJcpressed, over the months that we have been holding these meetings, that there is not the animosity, possibly, towards pumpers. But we think that we should have a little bit better break on the administration of the waters on the upper regions of both the rivers, the Platte and the Ar]cansas. I want to comment on something that was discussed yesterday in a water meeting at Salida. We learned about a small area, some 46,000 acres that was in productive agricul- ture, and over a period of about ten or twelve years or maybe a little longer, the area has been reduced by one-fourth. Ten thousand acres have been taken out of active production. Now you can see what that does to the economy of any area. I do not have the figures for the Canon city area but I wouldn't be a bit sur- prised but what you would find that there have been many acres taken out of active production here also. Again, that really hurts the economy of an area. I think this has all been brought about, if you want to study the flows of water and I am sure you do, over a period of years. At this particular time of the year there is not too much difference, but let's take about 30 days back when the water calls were put on for about 1874. Then the \~ater flowed do\~n the stream and nowhere did anybody along the line get a crack at this water. what happens is this - if that water was used, we know then that it would create a certain amount of re- charge in the area and they'd get it down below. You have heard me say this before. I've intro- duced legislation with that in mind, of using water in the upper regions because you are going