A number of organizations, representing a wide variety of water interests, have agreed to participate in this project. Organizations have assigned contact persons who will provide input to the project, answer questions, and review products.

Because this is an exploratory project, we don't expect all participants to agree with all the results of the project. Each participant will be invited to submit a counterpoint document to be attached, without editing, to each project output product.

Participants are:

From the participants we have learned:

• Verification of the hydrologic tools is important. A banking system requires confidence that water actually does what the tools say it will.

• Verification and enforcement of user commitments is vital. Deposits must actually occur and withdrawals must be within authorized limits.

• Opinions about market mechanisms range from "market mechanisms are vital" to "any market-based approach will be a deal-breaker".

• Potential users worry about the complexity of accounting and administration that ground-water banking may create.

• Potential users have a high level of concern about the implications of accomodating new uses while protecting existing uses.

• Existing surface-water rental pools can provide a model for some concepts of ground-water banking. For instance, in a surface-water reservoir the water is delivered to storage under the priority system (only delivered when seniors are satisfied). Once stored, the water is the "property" of its owner, deliverable upon demand (within operating rules of the pool). One of these operating rules is a shrinkage adjustment for evaporation and seepage; this could be a model for dealing with the "leaky vault" condition in a ground-water bank.