[AUDIO LOGO] RODDY ROGERS: Southwest Missouri Water is a coalition of utilities and water providers that have collectively gotten together since 2003 to establish our next water source for the future.

There's a vast amount of water here, and it's got a big watershed that feeds it.

What we are requesting out of this reservoir, if we used it all at one time, it's about equal to what they lose to evaporation off this lake in one year.

It covers both industry and manufacturing demands.

Water's a huge economic driver.

They do look at agriculture, all those-- those water needs, which is just about everything we do in our daily lives.

They look at those demands.

They look at the population.

We still represent 850,000 people growing to a million.

This project will bring in about $1 billion and about 9,000 jobs into Southwest Missouri.

Everything started with a groundwater study that showed that groundwater is not the reliable source for the future.

And we had a demand increase from the time we started our studies, which was back around 2010 to 2060, of 125 million gallons per day.

That's about a 40% increase over that 50-year study time period.

Taking out some agriculture, doing some conservation, and using available sources got us down to a gap of about 53 million gallons per day.

So we needed to fill that gap.

And as of January, we were approved for a reallocation of storage from this lake here at Stockton to meet about 70% of that gap need.

We've got the same amount of water now that we did when the dinosaurs were here.

But we're using it much faster.

Water is a closed cycle, which is just a fancy way of saying, we got all the water we've ever had, we got all the water we're ever going to have, and we're taking it out now faster than it can replenish itself in that water cycle.

We're using water for more and more things than we used to use it for.

We didn't used to use water to water the grass or spray down our driveways.

We now use it for those.

We use it for hydropower.

We use it for mining.

AI now uses huge amounts of water for those data banks to be cooled.

A microchip factory can use as much water as a town of 50,000 people.

And some are concerned about what the costs will be as we go forward.

We'll have to pay for the water, but we'll also have to pay for the infrastructure.

And there's some significant costs there.

But when you divide it among the amount of population we have, it's pennies per day, and it's much less than what we spend on a lot of other things that we use every day.

We looked at groundwater.

We looked at building new lakes.

We looked at existing reservoirs.

And this is the best alternative for the long-term.

You can get 20 gallons of water from your faucet for less than $0.15.

It's 20 times less expensive than dirt.

We don't put a lot of value on it because it doesn't cost a lot.

But it is priced way below what its value is.

And I think as we go forward, as we start this regionalism-- and it's happening everywhere-- that water is probably going to go up in value and maybe up in cost over time.

And to be ahead of this is really good for our area.

I talked about the value of water and how people don't appreciate that.

But that's changing.

Worldwide right now, water is becoming very lucrative to steal.

Wall Street firms says that water is $1 trillion opportunity, and it's going to be the resource that defines this century, just like oil defined the last century.

I've had a lot of opportunity to be in the third world in places where they don't have water.

And education, economy, health system, medical, food, the things that make up the fabric of life, water is a common thread through them all.

And in those places, not having a reliable water supply is why they can't have those things.

And I've never forgotten that, in a place that has seen the well run dry, so to speak, that even the children understand where water falls in the hierarchy of things.

And that's the kind of perspective I hope we can establish here in Southwest Missouri and also sustain.

Because if we can get a water source in place, our future is golden.