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.. , Or:r.: n' .. ~ .,) Foremost the potential of use 01 the aquifer 89 storage must be fully recognized In any management scheme. This use has been advocated recently by Mr. W. D. FaTr (Colorado Water Resources Research Insti- tute, 1977, pp. 20-21), well-kno~n agricultural and business leader In the South PLatte basin. Said he, speaking about drought management: "Another suggestion is to better use our tremendous ground water resources. The present law Is completely wrong as far as water conservation Is concerned. The only thing it accomplishes is to try and keep old priority surface rights satis- fied In a dry year. When the dry year occurs, the state engineer 6huts down the wells or forces them to run other surface water down the river to augment the old priorities. This is certainly not a good total use of ~ater resources. Our ground water is our greatest unused w8ter resource. It should be thought of as a savings account. and it should be used on that basis. When snowpack is short and the runoff is minimal, every pump should be running and withdra~ing our underground savings aCCOunt when it 1s needed. To be a little more specific On this point, I fimly beli(!ve that ....hen there is a good year with a sufficient stream flow of water. then I should not be allowed to use my ~ells. We should conserve and build up our ground water res~rve8 in those y~ars. Un the con- trary, when ~ater supplies are short, 1 Ghould be forced to use my wells. My ditch water and reservoir W3tCt ahould go to my neighbors ~ho do not have an underground supply. If .::Jur ~ater supplies ....ere managed in this manner, I ~ould guess that our total yearly supplies of water ....auld be in- creased by almost one-third." The current study has indeed confirmed and pro- vtded quantitative ver1ficat.lol'l of the vie....s based on experience ex~ressed by Mr. Farr. FUTURE RESEARCH The study has shown the feasibility ~ith the C.W.R.R.I. surface-ground water model to predict , 'J>o(' accurately and cost-effectively the behavior of th~ South Platte system with both a fine space (mlle) and fine time {week) scale over mnny ye~rs. If n~ Hr. Farr said, "The problem is to best manage and utilize our total water aJPplies, not only on a day-to-day basis. but on a prudent pJ an [or years ahead", ~ the current stream-aquifer model should be refineJ so that cost-effective runs could be made 0;\ a daily basis and for extended periods of years. Re- search on model f.mprovements 1oIf.l1 proci!ed in this direction. With the curri!nt model a felo1 more runs should be made to illustrate, for example. the mixed stra- tegy proposed by Mr. Farr. If a year is declnrcd a ~ yellr then 8 limited pumping be fallO~i!d that year. If a year is ....ater allocation strategy could declared a .9.E.l tegy IJould be , year, then a pumping as n€eded,stra- follolJed that ~ar. For example, th~ dry 1952-1959 years were followed by relatively \Jet years in 1960 and 1961. One could determine that' with a limited-pumping strategy in the years 1960- 19b1 wheth~r or not the system outflows bounce back in a year or two to the level ex~erlence~ under hiitorical conditions and thus COnfirm the relativel fast recovery time of the aquifer. Even at the current level of development of the stream-aquifi!r model (cost-effective on Q wei!kly basis) many more runs testing other combinations of strategies can be made. Alternatives to the proposed Narro....s dam~ Just upstream of, t.he studied reach of the South Platte river, could be inve6tigated. It is possible that managed use of the aquifer as a reserv01r could sub- stitute to some extent for a surface reservoir. Or a smaller surface reservoir might serve a usef~l purpose for regulating Stream flo~ to reduce iosses aut of state and also to maximize recharge into th, aquifer from the stream. Furthermore, it might facilitate special diversions 1nto canals far B