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<br />agricultural and municipal economies, and stream flows of the <br />Arkansas and the Poudre. Local and regional economies have been <br />built in reliance on existing water use and delivery patterns. <br />The well known example of California's Owens Valley, where <br />agricultural water was siphoned off to serve Los Angeles <br />municipal use without adequate protection for the area of origin, <br />is an occurrence which Colorado should carefully examine and <br />avoid, see Nadeau, The Water Seekers (Peregrine Smith, Inc. <br />1974), pp. 14-33. <br /> <br />THE COLORADO-BIG THOMPSON PROJECT SHOWS HOW THE <br />DEVELOPMENT OF NEW WATER, ITS CONJUNCTIVE USE WITH NATIVE BASE <br />WATER SUPPLY, AND THE TRANSFER MARKET CAN BE <br />UTILIZED FOR STABILIZATION OF A FIRM WATER YIELD, <br />WHILE PROTECTING THE BASIN OF ORIGIN <br /> <br /> <br />Water imported to one major river basin from another is <br />extremely valuable because, unlike native basin water, it is free <br />from the call of the river and the legal requirement to maintain <br />return flows, so long as dominion and control over successive use <br />of the imported water is maintained, City and County of Denver v. <br />Fulton Irriqation Ditch Company, 179 Colo. 47, 55, 506 P.2d 144 <br />(1972); C.R.S. 37-82-106. Because of historic agreements between <br />Northeastern Colorado and Western Colorado, basin-of-origin <br />protection has been provided for the Colorado River basin. In <br />return, Northeastern Colorado has been able to develop an <br />extremely flexible and valuable system for supplementing native <br />South Platte Basin native water rights, which form the base <br />supply of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District. The <br />boundaries of the Northern District include a seven county area <br />stretching along the Front Range of Colorado from Ft. Collins on <br />the north to Boulder on the south and then east from Platteville <br />down the South Platte River to the Nebraska state line, involving <br />direct delivery to 16 cities and 750,000 acres of irrigated land. <br /> <br />Through the Colorado-Big Thompson Project native waters <br />of the South Platte Basin are supplemented by developed water <br />from the colorado River Basin. In connection therewith, the <br /> <br />-15- <br />