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<br />through a contractual arrangement with the Colorado Water - <br />Conservation Board.5 At the time that this deal was put <br />together, the statute simply recognized that the Colorado Water <br />Conservation Board could "acquire" water rights for instream use, <br />in contrast to establishing them through an original <br />appropriation. Since the original appropriations would all be <br />fairly junior, the Conservancy was interested in this acquisition <br />authority as a way of establishing more senior priorities for <br />instream water rights. <br />The G. Berkeley Ditch is a 1 cfs water right with an 1862 <br />priority date that was originally diverted from Boulder Creek <br />along with a number of other rights in the center of town at the <br />Broadway Street Bridge. The Conservancy purchased the water <br />right contingent on the re-purchase by the Colorado Department of <br />Natural Resources acting through the Division of Wildlife and the <br />Colorado Water Conservation Board and on the issuance of a water <br />court decree approving its change from irrigation to instream <br />use. The state agreed to re-purchase and then prosecuted the <br />change of water right with the state. Although the re-purchase <br />agreement with the state provided that The Nature Conservancy <br />could be a co-applicant in the change case, the Conservancy ended <br />5 S.B. 91 and S.B. 212 are codified at C.R.S. Section 37- <br />92-102(3). <br />5