Laserfiche WebLink
up just contributing legal services and the change application <br />was filed and decreed solely in the state's name.6 <br />Senate Bill 212 limited the issuance of water rights decrees <br />for instream use, be they original or change decrees, to only the <br />Colorado Water Conservation Board. This does not preclude, <br />however, a private or municipal entity being a co-applicant in <br />water court and having a say in the prosecution of the change <br />case, and then issuing the decree solely to the Conservation <br />Board. Because a water right can be modified significantly or <br />even declared abandoned in a change case, the right to control a <br />change application can be an important issue in any contractual <br />arrangement with the Conservation Board to change a purchased or <br />donated water right to instream use. <br />Another basic issue in any such contract with the <br />Conservation Board is the degree to which the private donor or <br />seller retains control over the exercise of the water right once <br />it is changed to instream use. In the case of the G. Berkeley <br />Ditch, the Conservancy inserted a covenant in its deed to the <br />state under which the ownership of the water right would revert <br />to the Conservancy if the Conservation Board ever ceased to "hold <br />6 See, Decree in Case No. 79-CW-308, Water Division No. 1, <br />May 31, 1981. <br />6