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<br />strategy and will inhibit market transactions that could meet new <br />and changing demands, depending on the actual price and length of <br />water contracts the Bureau writes in any given circumstance. <br /> <br />In the land of little rain, only a long-term supply is <br />calculated to invite substantial investment. If uncommitted <br /> <br />federal reclamation storage water is effectively unavailable to <br /> <br />meet new or changing demands for water because of Reclamation's <br /> <br /> <br />revised policy, new and existing non-federal storage structures <br /> <br />and alternative sources of supply, such as tributary and non- <br /> <br />tributary groundwater, and market transactions in non-federally <br /> <br />held water rights, are the likely focus of investment by the <br /> <br />municipal sector, the largest market factor. <br /> <br />Federal and state regulatory policy applicable to transfers . <br /> <br />will inevitably affect the viability of water markets: <br /> <br />Policies that are changing or ambiguous add <br />an additional element of risk to the transfer <br />process and can affect market activity by <br />failing to clarify the conditions under which <br />a transfer mayor may not take place.u <br /> <br />Colby emphasizes that "a buyer must view a market purchase as an <br /> <br />economically attractive method of obtaining water relative to <br /> <br />other possibilities . . <br /> <br />,,~ <br /> <br />Dean Frank Treleases's classic statement of "an ideal water <br /> <br />law" bears repeating: <br /> <br />n Bonnie G. Colby, "Economic Impacts of Water Law - State Law <br />and Water Development in the Southwest", 28 Natural Res. J. 721, <br />722 (1988). <br /> <br />~ ~ at 724. <br /> <br />10 <br />