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any state agency "to deprive the people of the state of Colorado of thf: beneficial use of those <br />waters available by law and interstate compact." Id. <br />Upon a cYiallenge to the statute's constitutionality, the Court lipheld the law, finding that <br />the General Assembly intended to depart from the well-established zf;quirement of a physical <br />diversion when it enacted Senate Biil 97 declaring the Coiorado Water Conservatic>n Board as <br />the sole entity able to appropriate zninimum flows without a diversion between twc) designated <br />points in the river. Colo. River Water Conservation Dist., 197 Colo. at 476, 594 P,.2d at 574. <br />The General Assembly did so by expanding the definition of "beneficial use" to include the <br />"appropriation by the state of Colorado in the manner prescribed by 1aw of such minimum flows <br />between specific points or levels for and on natural streams and lakes as are zequired to preserve <br />the natural envirDnment to a reasonable degree." § 37-92-103(4), 10 C.R.S. (2003) (emphasis <br />added). The Court subsequently recognized the validity of these limits: <br />[;;]ection 37-92-102(3), while creating a right to appr•opriate such <br />waters, burdens the actions of the Board by creating a unique <br />s-:atutory fiduciary duty between the Board and the people of this <br />s:ate so that the Board may only appropriate a particular amount o#' <br />viater, i. e., the minimum amount necessary to preserve the natural <br />environment; second, and equally controlling here, the Board's <br />decreed water rights ... are designated as the "minimum stream <br />f.low as required to preserve the natural environment to a <br />r?asonable degree. <br />Aspen Wilderness Workshop, Inc. v. Colo. Water Conservation Bd., 901 P.2d 1251, 1256-57 <br />(Colo. 1995). 7'he limitations imposed by the in-stream flow statute were not found to violate <br />the constitutional right to divert water for beneficial use. Cf. Ciry & County ofDErnver v. <br />Northern Colo. Water Conservancy Dist., 276 P.2d 992, 1001 (Colo..1954) (reco;o-nizing that the <br />doctrine of rela:ion back in conditional water rights is a"legal fiction in derogatic3n of the <br />Constitution," :;ubject to regulation by the General Assembly."). <br />20