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-5- declared that it was powerless to protect "the artistic value of the falls". Instead, it said, the court must limit its "inquiry into the effectiveness of the use of the water in the way adopted as compared with the customary methods of irrigation". The court found that using a waterfall to grow canyon vegetation was a rather poor method of irrigation. Consequently, the court allowed the hydroelectric company to proceed with its plane The Cascade Town case set the stage for decades of struggle by conservationists to find ways to protect water flowing in natural settings. The nett Colorado instream flow case also was decided against protection of instream flows. In 1965 the Colorado River Water Conservation District sought an instream water right for "piscatorial purposes", noting (in apparent understatement) that the streams involved "have been a habitat for fish and the propagation and preservation thereof for over 40 years".10 One might have thought that the Conservation District had a stronger case than the town of Cascade, because in 1963 the state legislature specifically authorized the Conservation District "[t]o file upon and hold for the use of the public sufficient water of any natural stream to maintain a constant stream flow in the amount necessary to preserve fish ...:'ll Despite this explicit legislative direction, the court refused to take the hint and denied the District's request for water rights on three streams in the Colorado River basin. The court declared, in essence, that it simply could not believe the words it read: "[T]he legislature did not intend to bring about such an extreme departure from well established doctrine ...:' The Conservation District's efforts to protect fisheries in western Colorado, it seemed, were doomed by the recalcitrant traditions of western water law. Colorado's Instream Flow Prosrram Not until 1973 did the Colorado legislature again address the issue of instream flows. Under pressure from a strong grassroots campaign led by Trout Unlimited, the legislature created a special program for instream flow rights to be run by the Colorado Water Conservation Board ("CWCB").'~ The CWCB was authorized to acquire water rights for instream flow both by appropriation and by transfer from effisting consumptive uses. These new water rights are accorded the same legal protection as water diverted from the stream. To date, the instream flow program has been a limited success. The CWCB has obtained decrees in state water court to protect instream flows in 1,074 segments of streams totaling 6,700 miles.' This impressive statistic, however, belies the shortcomings of the program. The vast majority of instream flow rights in Colorado range frrom one to three cfs (cubic 'After winning the court battle, the hydropower company ultimately abandoned its diversion project, and the hamlet of Cascade can still be found a few miles west of Colorado Springs. 10Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. Rockv Mountain Power Co.. 158 Colo. 331, 406 P.2d ?98 (1965). "Colo. Rev. Stet. ~ 160-7-5(10) (1963). '!It is not without irony that the task of protecting instream flows was handed to the CWCB. This is the Colorado agency charged with promoting the development of Colorado's full share of water through the construction of dams. In other words, the agency charged with making sure that as little water as possible flows out of the state (by building dams) is also charged with the task of increasing and protecting such flows within the state (by not building dams). "I'he Daily Sentinel (Mar. 29, 1987).