Two board members of the La Plata West Water Authority are buoyed by the initial response to a plan to bring drinking water to the arid west side of La Plata County. The 640 commitments gathered in a month - each backed by a deposit of $500 - are encouraging, Mae Morley and Gene Bradley said last week in separate interviews. But nothing concrete will be known until engineers finish a feasibility study, they said. "I'm fifth generation out here," said Morley, a resident of unincorporated Breen. "The commitments show true need and desire because very few people have abundant well water that is drinkable. There are wells with bad water and there are dry holes. We want drinkable water."  There are an estimated 1,300 property owners and 930 residences in the targeted area, most of them clustered along the La Plata River and Colorado Highway 140 from Breen to Redmesa.

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