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• Board Meeting Date: 7/11/2007
• Description: ISF Section - Hat Creek Water Right Acquisition
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

DONATION AND ACQUISITION AGREEMENT

This Donation and Acquisition Agreement is between the COLORADO WATER
CONSERV ATION BOARD (the "Board"), an agency of the State of Colorado, and the
COLORADO WATER TRUST (the "Trust"), a Colorado nonprofit corporation, P.G.
Box 9386, Denver, CO 80209.

WHEREAS, the Board is authorized by Section 37-92-102(3), C.R.S., to acquire
from any person, including any governmental entity, such water, water rights or interests
in water as the Board determines may be required for instream flows to preserve or
improve the natural environment to a reasonable degree and to take whatever action may
be needed to ensure such instream flows remain in the river; and

WHEREAS, under Section 37-92-102(3), C.R.S., no person or entity other than
the Board "shall be granted a decree adjudicating a right to water or interests in water for
instream flows in a stream channel between specific points ... for any purpose
whatsoever"; and

WHEREAS, the Trust was organized as a nonprofit corporation to "acquire, or
assist others in acquiring, water rights, or interests in water rights, using voluntary
approaches with willing owners, for conservation benefits"; and

WHEREAS, the Trust works within the framework of Colorado water law,
interstate compacts and equitable apportionments to accomplish its mission, and works in
partnership with the Board, the only entity authorized by state law to hold instream flow
water rights;

WHEREAS, the Trust wishes to assist the Board in preserving and improving the
natural environment of Hat Creek in Eagle County, Colorado; and

WHEREAS, the Hat Creek Ditch was decreed stream priority no. 335A in Civil
Action No. 673, by the Eagle County District Court, on July 17, 1916, with an
appropriation date of march 7, 1914, for 2.0 cfs, for irrigation purposes (the "Hat Creek
Right");

WHEREAS, the Trust acquired the Hat Creek Right by donation from the Vail
Corporation in connection with an exchange of the historically irrigated land, and other
land, to the United States Forest Selvice, which lands will no longer be irrigated;

WHEREAS, the Board currently holds a instream flow right on Hat Creek
decreed in Case No. 87CW271 to preserve the natural environment; and

WHEREAS, the Board intends to accept the donation of the Hat Creek Right from
the Trust and to file an application with the Division 5 Water Court for a change of use of
such water right to allow instream flow use by the Board to preserve or improve the

Exhibit 1