BOARD01775

• Board Meeting Date: 3/20/2000
• Description: Platte River Basin Issues - Platte River Endangered Species Cooperative Agreement - Water Action Plan Committee Update
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

From the very beginning, the water suppliers told interest groups that they were not dealing
with a blank slate because the outline for what A2 would be was already contained in the
Draft LEIS, The suppliers said their intention was to "flesh out the details" of that outline as
well as what was spelled out in the December 20, 1996 letter from Front Range water
providers to Forest Supervisor Rick Cables, (Letter is attached,) The water suppliers said
they would put together a plan that would be parallel to (or better than) Wild & Scenic
designation in terms of protection, but that would also allow for the flexibility needed to
provide water to metropolitan Denver, At the same time, they wanted to collaboratively build
a plan, with the help of interest groups, that would address as many of everyone's concerns
as possible,

That being said, the interest groups were very involved in every aspect of formulating the
South Platte Protection Plan. Before the public group process began, the water suppliers
contacted representatives from all of the various interests along the river, They hired a
facilitator to interview them at length to:

1. determine their concerns for the river,

2, explain their reasons for or against designation and/or A2, and

3. tell us under what conditions they would be willing to attend meetings to help
create an alternative plan.

Many of the groups made it clear that they would help us create an alternative only with the
understanding that their involvement did not necessarily mean they would endorse the final
product. The water suppliers agreed to this baseline, and made it clear they were looking for
ideas from interest groups so that their concerns could be addressed regardless of whether
they ended up endorsing the final South Platte Protection Plan,

With this understanding, four work groups were put together to address the four major
components of the plan: flows; water quality; recreation, scenery and wildlife; and the
endowment fund, Invitees to the work groups included a balance of environmentalists,
counties, water providers, recreationists and landowners, (See appendix for lists of
attendees and meetings,) Participants attended over 46 meetings -- some of which lasted 4-
5 hours -- to put together this plan representing their expressed interests and concerns,
Despite their reservations, the interest groups put a great deal of time and effort into this
lengthy process,

Later in the process a meeting was held to discuss plans for meeting the water supply needs
within metropolitan Denver, This group, composed of water suppliers, counties, and
environmental interests discussed what alternatives exist for supplying water in addition to or
as an alternative to storage at the Two Forks site. This discussion was also pursued further
in other groups, This work was deemed pivotal to coming to some understanding about the
reserved ROW.

In addition, three large public meetings were held at the beginning, middle and end of the
process to get comments from the general public and to allow participants in individual work

11