A two-day gathering of water experts, farmers and providers this week discussed the need to improve ways of how groundwater is currently managed, which some have blamed for the loss of tens of millions of dollars in economic activity.

In Colorado, more than two dozen ditches or pipelines provide nearly 500,000 acre-feet of water annually by transmountain diversions. By basin, the major importers are the: South Platte River Basin, Arkansas River Basin, and Rio Grande River Basin.

Weeks of snowy, cool weather has officials feeling a little more optimistic about the water-supply situation as the state heads into summer. As of May 15, snowpack in the Upper Colorado River basin, which includes Summit County's Blue River, was 89 percent of average; year-to-date precipitation in the basin totaled 92 percent of average on Saturday.

Transferring agricultural water to meet future water demands in the South Platte River Basin is not the answer. That was the consensus Thursday when the South Platte Roundtable of the Colorado Water Conservation Board unveiled the findings of its study, Water for the 21st Century.

The state water board is looking at a few big water projects, new ways to share water and conservation as ways to address the impending gap between future municipal water supplies and identified projects to meet the gap.

An amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot designed to improve the Interstate 70 corridor will take money away from water projects in the state, according to opponents of Amendment 52.

It is possible to replenish the vanishing Upper Black Squirrel aquifer in eastern El Paso County to create Colorado's first underground storage reservoir, a state agency has determined. But that may be the easiest part in using the aquifer to help solve rural water supply problems, experts said Wednesday.