CANON CITY � A state committee is looking at a �four-legged stool� to meet a looming gap in municipal water supplies.�� But if one of those legs � developing new water supplies � fails, the whole thing could topple.

Challenged by Gov. Bill Ritter earlier this year to come up with a plan by the end of the year, the Interbasin Compact Committee has been meeting monthly to speed up work on its vision for the state�s water future.

�This is a four-legged stool,� said Alex Davis, chairwoman of the IBCC, at the group�s meeting last week. �These are all processes to meet the gap.�

The �legs� are:

Identified projects and processes already under way. New supplies of water, most likely new diversions from the Western Slope. Municipal water conservation. Drying up, or alternatively sharing, agricultural water supplies.

In any case, the state municipal water demand is expected to increase to nearly 2 million acre-feet from current demand of about 1.2 million acre-feet by 2050, when the state�s population is expected to double to 10 million people.

The IBCC has been studying how the gap could be met for more than a year, looking at how the alternatives can be balanced. There are ranges for the demand and the IBCC has been concentrating on midrange estimates.

Not all of the identified projects � things like the Southern Delivery System or Arkansas Valley Conduit � are expected to be successful. And, they may not come at the right time or place to meet future needs.

�We�re making the assumption that the identified projects and processes will be available to those who need them. It's an oversimplification,� said Eric Kuhn, general manager of the Colorado River Conservation District. �Not all those who need water have access" to the identified projects and processes, he said.� "The timing and how water can be available needs to be answered.�

�Drying up agriculture is seen as the default option because that is what has happened in the past. Municipal water suppliers thirsty for new supplies have found willing sellers of agricultural water and have not fully developed all of the water they�ve purchased. The 2004 Statewide Water Supply Initiative developed by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, found that thousands of more acres would be dried up even if most current water projects were successful.

�No one is sure how conservation would be applied toward new supplies of water or simply as a hedge against drought.

�After months of get-acquainted meetings, the IBCC last year developed a computer model to measure how each of the alternatives could be applied to the big picture of state water.

�That has led to the more difficult questions: How far should conservation go? Which large state water delivery project could be built? What happens if projects on the drawing board never get built?

�And the toughest of all: How is the Front Range ever going to get the intransigent Western Slope to agree to another transmountain project?

�� �One idea is to have the Legislature declare there is some amount of water available on the Western Slope and that would solve all the problems,� Kuhn said. �If that�s the case and the Legislature can really make this water, then why not just declare there�s 1 million acre-feet in the South Platte and there would be no need to take any water from the Colorado or Arkansas river basins. We�d need graduates of Hogwarts to make that happen.�

A proposal by the IBCC to create water banking, compensatory storage on the West Slope and a risk-management plan for needs on both sides of the Continental Divide was batted around last week. The Front Range has the greatest needs, and currently brings over nearly half of its surface water supply from the Colorado River basin.

In Kuhn�s words, it is a way to �share the pain.�

Water banking would try to guard water rights claimed since the 1922 Colorado River Compact against a call by downstream states by storing water to release in the driest years.

�The water would be stored in wet years to protect diversions in dry years,� Davis said.

Some large water providers on the Front Range aren�t convinced the plan could work.

��Denver Water views this with skepticism,� said Mark Waage, water resources manager for the state�s largest municipal supplier. �What�s in it for water developers? Where�s the guarantee or certainty of a new supply?�

�� �This is a framework for a cooperative, collaborative way to move this forward,� answered Jay Winner, general manager of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District, a representative of the Arkansas Basin Roundtable. �This is a much better solution than having 1041s in each county shoot down a project.�

Wayne Vanderschuere, a Colorado Springs Utilities executive, said the document presented to the IBCC was not complete or balanced, provided no certainty for cities and set up new barriers.

�Bill Trampe, a Gunnison basin rancher, responded there are guarantees� that Western Slope interests would be protected, and said the Front Range relies on the western part of the state for recreation as well as water.�

��This offers the West Slope some mechanism that assures us that we�re not going to be annihilated,� Trampe said.

�Some questioned whether the idea would even be legal.

��You�re suggesting that we change the rules of the compact and prior appropriation?� asked Rod Kuharich, executive director of the South Metro Water Supply Authority.

The authority wants to develop a pipeline from Flaming Gorge Reservoir � the same plan put forth by entrepreneur Aaron Million � to meet growth needs and reduce dependence on water being mined from the Denver Basin Aquifers. Kuharich objected to making guarantees for existing rights that are junior to the 1922 compact and creating the possibility of curtailing future junior rights even when water was available.

Winner and others tried to convince Kuharich that an all-or-nothing approach would just lead to more deadlock on developing water projects.

�You�re holding us up, and you have the problems,� Winner said.

��You haven�t convinced me, Jay,� Kuharich shot back.

��This is the discussion we�ve needed to have since we formed,� said Peter Nichols, a water attorney appointed by the governor to the IBCC. �How do we as a state develop more water out the Colorado River basin?�

�This is a different way of doing things that would protect more interests and make for less of a battle in water court,� said Melinda Kassen, Trout Unlimited�s Western Water Project legal director. �At the end of the day, this might be too much of a give, and people are free to take their risk and go their own way.�

Jeris Danielson, a former state engineer who represents the Arkansas Basin Roundtable on the IBCC, suggested municipal interests need to back off their hard-line positions.

�We�re just starting a conversation that never took place for 130 years,� Danielson said. �The issues are just beginning to develop.�

Eric Wilkinson, executive director of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District and a CWCB member, explained that a compact call would be based on a 10-year running average, while Colorado water rights curtailment would occur on a year-to-year basis. He defended the proposed plan.

�If you get a 1922 call, it�s going to reach deep and long. This is a way to keep a large number of water rights in priority,� Wilkinson said. �This is a way to dialogue with the Western Slope.�

Davis asked the group to strongly consider moving the storage proposal ahead, allowing those with objections to help shape it into a more acceptable form.

��Without a new supply, ag is the first thing we throw under the bus, and conservation becomes harder if there�s no light at the end of the tunnel,� Davis said. �The fears and concerns of the West Slope and environmental groups would be the first to halt a new supply project. We have to find conditions that make it palatable to everyone.�