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In Nevada, the Conservancy is acquiring reclamation project <br />water rights, is changing them from irrigation to wetlands use, <br />again with continued diversions, and is then turning them over to <br />the federal government for use in cooperation with the state <br />government. In Nevada, it also now appears legal to own instream <br />water rights privately,2 and The Nature Conservancy has privately <br />appropriated an instream water right for its Condor Canyon <br />Preserve in that state. <br />In Arizona, the Conservancy invented the original <br />appropriation of privately held instream water rights,3 and has <br />several private filings pending there now. But the change of <br />existing irrigation water rights to instream use in Arizona may <br />have to be done in cooperation with the state, just as it is <br />authorized in Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Utah.4 <br />What is important to us is protecting instream flows with <br />property rights that have the permanence of land holdings, and we <br />2 See, State v. Moros, 766 P2d 264 (Nevada 1988). <br />3 The administrative record for the Conservancy's private <br />instream water right at Ramsey Creek is highlighted in the <br />Arizona Department of Water Resources, April 29, 1983 Decision <br />and order, its July 29, 1983 Order Denying Motion for Rehearing, <br />and its October 17, 1983 Permit, all concerning Application No. <br />33-78419. <br />4 See A.R.S. Section 45-172. The Wyoming statute is found <br />at W.S. Sections 41-3-1001 to -1014, and Utah's is at U.C. <br />Section 73-3-3. <br />3