• Conserve even more water — "The best way to develop new water is to conserve what we already have."

Utah already is halfway to conserving 25 percent of its water use by 2050. Matheson would "raise the bar" and seek greater water savings than 25 percent, although he wouldn't put a number on it Monday.

• Develop new water sources smart and efficiently. He wants to finish the final parts of the Central Utah Project, build a pipeline from Lake Powell to St. George, build a pipeline to urban areas from Flaming Gorge and build new reservoirs on the Bear River.

He also wants to start a "water bank," where water rights owners can "deposit" water they aren't using at the moment and others can "borrow" those rights for a period of time. California, Idaho and Colorado have such banks now.

"Let the market decide" — if a town is willing to pay high prices for water during the summer, let it "borrow" that water from the bank, and everyone benefits, he said.

• Implement a more comprehensive drought plan. "We must face up to the drought — even now we don't have a statewide drought response plan."

• Keep the current 1/16th-sales tax going to a state water development fund and expand the state effort to help local cities and water districts build new water projects.

• Assure high-quality water, including developing water reclamation projects that can take "dirty" water, like sewage and runoff, and turn it back into usable water.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. not only wants to keep the 1/16th sales tax for the state water fund but wants to expand state taxes going into the fund. Huntsman also wants to build the Lake Powell-to-St. George pipeline, his Web site says.

Huntsman campaign manager Jason Chaffetz says voters can see Huntsman's longer answers on water problems on the Utah Foundation election 2004 Web site: www.utahpriorities.net.

Matheson's complete water plan can be seen on his campaign Web site: www.mathesonforgovernor.com.

---

E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com.