Sharing water, municipal conservation and tamarisk removal were listed as the best ways to improve water supply in a recent survey of the Arkansas Basin Roundtable.

The state is trying to find a “tipping point” where water sales from a community begin to affect Main Street businesses. The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District Wednesday voted to help find the answer by folding the task into its existing research on the Arkansas Valley Super Ditch.

John Schweizer, chairman of the Super Ditch consortium, announced Wednesday the group has worked out an agreement with Pikes Peak Regional Water Authority to lease 2,000 acre feet of water to seven Colorado Springs-area entities. The leasing of irrigation water rights held by farmers working under seven canal companies in Southeastern Colorado would begin in 2011, Schweizer said.

Linking water to the land in a conservation easement has become a muddy area in Colorado. The value of the water used on farms can increase exponentially if its use is changed to municipal or industrial, creating a dilemma for assessors, headaches for property owners and trouble for conservation easement sponsors in the past.