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recovery under state law. In Colorado, this premise meant that the CWCB had to appropriate instream flow water rights for large order rivers that were near its border with Utah and downstream of significant existing water developments and opportunities for new water development within Colorado's share of the interstate compacts governing these rivers. A cooperative process was envisioned under which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) would quantify the instream flows needed for fish recovery, and then the CWCB would review whether sufficient water existed to meet those flows without compromising Colorado interstate compact shares. Years of debate then ensued about whether the USFWS could defensibly quantify the needed instream flows and whether that quantification would conflict with the development of Colorado compact shares. A set of upside-down instream flow water rights was proposed as the test resolution ofthis debate on two large, downstream reaches -- the 15-Mile Reach of the Colorado River between the major irrigation diversions in the Grand Valley and its confluence with the Gunnison River, and an 80-mile downstream reach of the Yampa River between its confluences with the Little Snake and Williams Fork rivers. Two water development "carveouts" were proposed for each reach, one to accommodate the immediately foreseeable upstream water development, and one that could be adjusted in response to unforeseen shifts in the development of Colorado's compact shares. These compact shares are not explicitly allocated to each of the major tributaries to the Colorado River in Colorado, and there was as much uncertainty about where and when the compact shares would be developed as there was about whether the USFWS could defensibly quantify the instream flows needed for fish recovery. Instead of hypothetically presuming eventual and irreconcilable conflict between compact development and the instream flows needed by the fish, these upside-down instream flow water rights presumed that the immediately foreseeable increments of water development would not preclude fish recovery and, thus, deferred the reconciliation of the next increments of water development until there was greater certainty about what the fish needed and where compact development would occur. Subject to such incremental adjustments, the remaining highly variable flows were quantified as the amounts needed for endangered fish recovery to be legally protected under state law. To guard against the water development carveouts depressing low flows below endangered fish tolerances, these upside-down instream flow water rights were to be coupled with conventional instream flow rights that were quantified in minimal, monthly stair-stepped amounts. Figure 6 illustrates this approach, although it only shows one water development carveout for simplicity. Both the upside-down water rights and the conventional instream flow water rights would have been new appropriations that were junior to all prior water development. After much negotiation, the CWCB determined to appropriate this combination of instream flow rights, and filed applications in Colorado water court to confirm them. (Applications filed December 27, 1995, Case Nos. 95CW296 and 297 for the IS-Mile Reach ofthe Colorado River, and Case Nos. 95CW155 and 156 for the lower Yampa River, all in Water Division 5). Although they were designed to avoid conflicts with water development, these instream flow water right filings were vigorously opposed in Colorado water court. The 14