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. . i Following acrimonious debate, the committee agreed that the very upper reaches of the poudre River, consisting of thirty-three miles, could be given federal Wild and Scenic River designation, subject to protective language for existing and planned water projects. Points of view regarding the remaining fifty miles of river above the canyon mouth were hopelessly at odds. The Fort Collins City Council approved a resolution supporting designation of the Poudre mainstem from its source to the mouth of the canyon and the South Fork of the Poudre, with the exception of the Rockwell Reservoir site. The Greeley City Council and the Weld County Commissioners opposed any federal designation whatsoever. Citizens' groups were formed to promote various points of view. Following two months of disagreement, representatives of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District and the City of Fort Collins announced that a compromise might be possible. Mr. Brown appointed a subcommittee of the Citizen's Advisory Group to hammer out a compromise solution. This subcommittee consisted of Larry D. Simpson, Manager, Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District; Chuck Carlson, Chairman, Weld County Commissioners; Chuck Wanner, member, Preserve Our Poudre Group; and Gerry Horak, Mayor Pro Tem, Fort Collins. Through the subcommittee negotiations, a Bill was fashioned containing protective language to exempt present water development from any affects by a Wild and Scenic River designation. Approximately seventy miles of the Poudre would have been designated Wild and Scenic. A number of future projects would have been excluded from designation and permit review, so long as reasonable fish flow bypasses were made by those projects. However, after the Bill was introduced by Representative Brown, national environmental groups opposed it and the Bill was not reported out of committee. Opposition focused on the fact that the Cache la Poudre wilderness area bordered on the Indian Meadows Reservoir site. The Sierra Club, in particular, objected to exempting a reservoir site which touched a wilderness_area. H.R. 3547, A Consensus 8il1 Arriving at a Poudre Wild and Scenic compromise between environmental and water user interests has been a steady three-year process. The major component of the compromise entails Wild and Scenic designation of the Poudre River as it runs through the Idylwilde and Indian Meadows Reservoir sites, with the result that these sites will be excluded from future development. -4-