There are two major resources being wasted in the South Platter River basin: reusable return flows and heat from power plants. There are currently an avearge of over 800,000 AF of water leaving Colorado at the State line, much of which could be reused. There are also power plants with total output of 2000 MW of electrical energy. The waste heat from these plants, that is currently simply being dumped to the atmosphere, could be used to drive thermal distillation of poor quality water in the river, turning it into high quality potable water through distillation.
Download conceptual report on the use of thermal distillation to produce potable water on the South Platte. Please comment as you see fit.