The emergence of a multiple objective philosophy in current water resources planning has provided the motivation for the relevant investment and allocation considerations. The applications, however, have been limited. The difficulties encountered have provided the impetus for the study of the feasible application of other techniques. An approach to handle the generation of alternatives within the Water Resource Council's "principles and standards" is presented. Couched within the context of multiattribute utility theory, the methodology incorporates the preferences of interest groups in guaranteeing a Paretian efficient set of alternatives. By focusing on the areas of conflict and providing a range of alternatives that exploit the points of advantage for each interest group, an explicit consideration of the tradeoffs in both a technical and political level can be effected. The results of the application of the approach to a quasi-hypothetical flood control problem are reported.