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Upper Gunni:wn River Water Conservancy District <br />02CW038 <br />The lel;islative understanding that reasonable and efficient use would be a limit on the amount <br />of water that :;hould be able to be appropriated by a recreational in-channel diversion is consistent <br />with case law and the legislative scheme reflected in the 1969 Act. "Under prior appropriation..., <br />beneficial use is the measure, scope, and limit of the water right:." Colorado Ground Water <br />Commission v. North Kiowa-Bijou Groundwater Management District, 77 P.3d 62, 72 n. 17 (citing <br />Santa Fe Tra;I Ranches Property Owners Ass'n. v. Simpson, 990 P.2d 46, 53-54 (Colo. 1999). <br />"[B]eneficial use, though an essential feature of the Colorado Constitution's water provisions ... is <br />not defined or limited thereby. Rather, what constitutes a beneficial use tracks legislative enactments, <br />court decisions, and, principally, the acts of appropriators who control the water to tytieir purpose") <br />(emphasis added). Santa Fe Ranches, 990 P.2d at 54 n. 9. In order to make a valid appropriation, <br />the "only indispensable requirements are that the appropriator intends to use the waters for a <br />beneficial pur)ose and actually applies them to that use". Town of Genoa v. Westfall, 349 P.2d 370, <br />378 (Colo. 19 60). Indeed, Fort Collins recognized beneficial uses associated with a recreational in- <br />channel boat zhute, and beneficial use was considered with respect to the question of whether the <br />boat chute ac'. ueved its intended purpose by functioning as designed.. Fort Collins at 932. Finally, <br />efficient use has been described as not giving a diverter the right to command the whole or a <br />substantial flow of the stream merely to facilitate his taking the fraction of the whole flow to which <br />he is entitled". Colorado Springs v. Bender, 148 Colo. 458, 462, 366 P.2d 552, 555 (1961). See <br />-10-