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1? <br />Legislative Statement for SB 216 explains: <br />SB 216 is designed to ensure that decrees for recreational in-channel diversions, <br />as reco ing zed bv the Colorado Supreme Court in the City of Thornton v. Citv of <br />Fort Collins case, are integrated into the state prior appropriations system in a <br />manner which appropriately balances the need for water based recreational <br />opportunities with the ability of Colorado citizens to divert and store water under <br />our compact entitlements for more traditional consumptive use purposes, such as <br />municipal, industrial and agricultural uses. <br />SB 216 Legislative Statement (Rec. v. 3, p. 945) (emphasis added). The Legislative Statement <br />also provides: "Finally, nothing in S.B. 216 is intended to create a water right which did not <br />previously exist by virtue of state Supreme Court interpretation of Colorado statute ...." <br />In urging the General Assembly to adopt the legislation that became SB 216, the CWCB <br />circulated a January 2001 white paper titled "Recreation Water Rights Legislation." In that <br />document, the CWCB admitted that RICDs existed prior to SB 216 when it stated: "The <br />Supreme Court [in Fort Collins] held that boat chutes and fish ladders are structures that <br />concentrate the flow of water. Therefore, they may qualify as a`structure or device' that <br />controls water in its natural course or location (and thus qualify for a water right) under section <br />37-92-103(7). .. ." (Appendix Tab A). <br />Furthermore, in the Statement of Basis and Purpose for its own agency rules on RICDs <br />promulgated after SB 216, the CWCB adopted the very same language from the Legislative <br />Statement quoted above. 2 C.C.R. 408-3 (2001) (Appendix Tab B). It thereby adopted a formal <br />agency opinion that SB 216 did not create new water rights, but instead codified the important <br />holding from Ft. Collins. <br />Given the legislative pronouncements and past CWCB admissions, the more recent <br />assertion in the CWCB briefing in this appeal that SB 216 created "new water rights" not subject <br />Tm1650