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of water. Northeaste!colorado has be more land sU~ble for irrigated agricul-' ture than there is water in the South Platte. Indeed, if agriculture is to be preserved or strengthened in that sector of the state, it will be dependent upon new sources of water. The clearest demonstration of such need comes from the Lower South Platte Conservancy District which negotiated and signed a repa~ent contract on July 27, 1976; with the Bureau for available Narr~~s Project water. This major legal- financial co~itment by water users in the area underscores a demand for additional supplies. The Board of Directors of the LOl;er South Platte Conservancy District has repeatedly stated that they would be able to allocate less than 70% of the water requested. The subsequent signing of the repayment contract confirms a commitment to buy and use Narrm;s water. We believe these actions clearly answer the question of need. Above and beyond the immediate request for project water, we have attempted to. determine where irrigated agriculture could expand in the coming decades within the northeastern part of the state. A question had arisen early in our review whether the some 500 wells installed in toe project area since 1961 had placed under irrigation all available high quality land; consequently, there would be no need for new water sources. The Department of Agriculture carefully reviewed this question both within and outside the project service area. First of all, Losan County alone contains over 280,000 acres of Class I and II lands - generally regarded as "prime" under any definition of the term. Yet today there are no more than 100,000 irrigated acres in the entire county, leaving at least 180,000 acres available for future irrigation. fbch of this land falls within the Narrows Proj8ct service area. Nore specifically, a random sample 0;: 1/6 of the sections under the North Sterling Canal (to which approximately 40\ of Narrows wate~ is allocated) was - 2 -