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UNCERTAIN WATER R1GHT5 - to conserve their "scenery and the natural and his- toric objects and the wildlife therein ...unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." In adjudicating a reserved right for Dinosaur National Monument in 1983,' however, the Colorado Supreme Court ignored the U.S. Supreme Court's guidance regarding the broad purposes for which reserved rights could be claimed for parks. The Colorado Court narrowly interpreted the New Mexico case to confine Dinosaur's reserved right solely to the purposes specified in the initial Presidential proclamation that established the monu- ment and in the Antiquities Act under which that proclamation was made. The Court disregarded spe- cific directives in a proclamation and in legislation later expanding the monument, both of which required the monument to be managed pursuant to the Park Service Organic Act. As a result, the Court awarded Dinosaur only that minuscule amount of water necessary to preserve dinosaur bones -the "objects of historic and scientific interest" protected by the monument's original proclamation. (The pos- sibility of expanding Dinosaur's reserved right to include water for the preservation of endangered fish, but solely those "of historic and scientific interest," was considered but rejected by a lower court after referral from the Colorado Supreme Court.) The Colorado Court's restrictive ruling on reserved rights at Dinosaur presents a severe danger to the monument's resources and forebodes a serious threat to all park waters. The ruling means that the monument's reserved right fails to protect flows in Dinosaur's Green and Yampa River Canyons, despite the critical role played by these flows in protecting the monument's natural, scenic, recreational, and fish and wildlife values. And unfortunately, with demands increasing for the water that flows through and sus- tains our parks, there is reason to worry that other courts will adopt similar restrictive interpretations. Needless to say, the impact on park water flows would be devastating. Second, the federal reserved water right doc- trine is often interpreted as protecting only the "mini- mum amount" of water needed to serve the purposes of a federal reservation. That phrasing could lead state courts to believe they can minimize the amount of water needed to assure the full health of a park's water-dependent resources, disregarding the Park Service Organic Act mandate to protect park resources "unimpaired." The "minimum amount" interpretation also complicates Park Service efforts to establish the quantity of water protected under a park's reserved rights because of the difficulty in demonstrating that a given amount of water is the "minimum" necessary to support diverse and com- plex natural systems. Third, protection of ground water for parks remains uncertain under the reserved right doctrine. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has strongly implied that the reserved right doctrine protects ground water as well as surface water in parks,e there is no clear court decision to that effect. Divergent state policies on the administration of ground water further complicate the situation. Fourth, there is little authoritative guidance about how to identify the specific park resources for which water can be claimed under park purposes, or how to determine the amount of water needed by those resources. Thus, there is great uncertainty about the character and extent of evidence needed to establish a reserved water right or to quantify the amount of water protected under that right. Moreover, the answer may vary significantly from state to state because a U.S. Supreme Court ruling9 has held that federal reserved water rights, though governed by federal law, must ordinarily be adjudi- cated in state courts. As a result, the Park Service has been compelled to develop a complex methodology for collecting, analyzing and presenting detailed hydrologic and ecological data as the basis for park water right claims. This process, and the extensive data collection and specialized scientific and legal expertise it requires, impose a particularly heavy bur- den of expense, time and effort on the Park Service, as compared to most other claimants in water adjudi- cations. And in some instances, the needed evidence is impossible or prohibitively expensive to obtain. Moreover, the Park Service has no guarantee that it will have adequate time, funds and expert staff to effectively implement this process for all parks involved in water right proceedings. Finally, because of the continuing uncertainty about the types of evi- dence necessary to support parks' reserved right claims, there is no assurance that even the Park Service's meticulous approach will satisfy the courts. Fifth, federal case law requires that both the entitlement to a federal reserved water right and the amount of water protected under that right must usu- ally be adjudicated in state courts. As a result, there is danger that state courts may narrowly and unfavor- ably interpret the federal reserved rights doctrine, as the Dinosaur example illustrates. That danger is heightened by the increasing demand and competi- tion for water, especially in the West. Furthermore, procedural requirements imposed in state adjudica- tion proceedings, such as tight timetables, can severely handicap preparation or presentation of the complex evidence needed to defend park water rights. Finally, even where a park's water right has been established, state courts may not be sympathetic 22