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As part of the Snake River basin adjudication, the Idaho Supreme Court acknowledged a federal reserved right for all unappropriated flows in three Idaho wilderness areas, finding that this quantity of flows was the minimum necessary to avoid the defeat the primary purpose of the wilderness designation (Potlatch v. u.s., 1999 Lexis 119 (Idaho 1999)). Concerned that this finding would preclude all upstream water development after these wilderness areas were designated in 1964, 1978, and 1980, this court then reversed itself on rehearing and decided that wilderness areas implied no water right whatsoever (Ibid, 2000 Lexis 112 (Ida~o 2000)). In the same general adjudication, the USFS was unable to secure all the flows of the wild and scenic portions of the Salmon and Rapid rivers in Idaho. The adjudication court found that a wilderness purpose could not be read into the wild and scenic designations for these rivers. The court consequently held that a federally reserved water right could not be quantified as all unappropriated flows as a matter of law, and that the USFS had to prove that such a quantification was the minimum necessary for their designated wild and scenic purposes (Decision, July 24, 1998, Case No. 39576, Snake River Basin Adjudication, Idaho 5th District Court.) This aspect of the opinion was not appealed. Once the wilderness purpose is cleared away, however, aU the remaining flows might still be proven or negotiated as the minimum amount necessary for these purposes, as was decreed on the Cache la Poudre River in Colorado. Appropriation of Upside-down Water Rights under State Water Law Upside-down instream flow water rights have been most frequently crafted as federally reserved water rights, but they can also be appropriated under state law. Hanging Lake. The CWCB recently appropriated upside-down instream flow water rights to protect the streams flowing in and out of Hanging Lake, a pristine lake and local tourist attraction near Glenwood, Colorado (Decrees, April 10, 1997, Cases Nos. 96- CW350, 351. 352, and 353, Water Division 5). The amount ofthese rights was specified as "all available unappropriated flows" of the Hanging Lake streams, subject to existing rights. Because there was only one existing water right upstream, it defined the amount of excepted water development. The CWCB appropriated this upside-down instream flow water right to protect the "truly unique and complex natural environment" of the Hanging Lake streams, finding that all of the remaining flows were available for instream appropriation, and endorsing the opinion of the Division Engineer that the upside-down instream flow right would be easier to administer than the stair-stepped conventional instream flow water right recommended by the CWCB's staff (D. Merriman, Memorandum to CWCB, Agenda Item 20a, November 18, 1996). Endangered Fish Recovery: The Upper Colorado River Basin. The appropriation of upside-down instream flow water rights under state law in Colorado was also attempted under a cooperative program to recover four endangered fish species in the Upper Colorado River basin. An initial premise for this recovery program was that the potential conflict between water development under state sanctioned water rights and the legal regulation of such water development under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) could be avoided by protecting the instream flows thought necessary for endangered fish 13