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of the area to help it determine whether to proceed with the project. Ex.A -69; Rec.Vol.III, p.221, <br />1.18 -25; p.222, 1.1. <br />In Fruitland, supra, 162 P. 161, this Court held that a reconnaissance field trip of <br />the sort conducted by Fort Collins was not sufficient to establish the overt act requirement 14 <br />In Bar 70 Ente rrp ices, supra, 703 P.2d 1297, the trial court awarded the applicant, <br />Tosco, an appropriation date based, in part, upon a field trip made by certain of the applicant's <br />employees. Evidence was presented at trial that the field trip was a reconnaissance mission to <br />determine the best sites to increase storage capacity in the river basin and to explore alternative <br />diversion points for a reservoir. This Court reversed the trial court on appeal and held that the <br />field trip failed to satisfy any of the three purposes of the overt acts requirement. Id. at 1307. <br />With respect to the first purpose, to manifest the necessary intent to appropriate water to <br />beneficial use, the Court stated: <br />Tosco's activities during the 1976 field trip were not of such a character as to satisfy <br />the first purpose of the overt acts requirement -- to actually manifest its intent to <br />appropriate water to a beneficial use. Tosco did not conduct a survey of the <br />reservoir or diversion sites, failed to set stakes or to locate monuments, and did not <br />post signs or publish notices.... Indeed, Tosco admitted at trial that the September <br />30, 1976, field trip was a preliminary reconnaissance to evaluate reservoir sites and <br />a number of possible diversion sites. Preliminary activity of this sort can scarcely <br />be said to manifest that which is essential to an intent to appropriate. <br />14 In what has now become a well -known passage, this Court stated: "Certainly the first step demanded by the rule <br />is nothing short of an open and notorious physical demonstration, conclusively indicating a fixed purpose to diligently pursue <br />and, within a reasonable time, ultimately acquire a right to the use of water, and as its primary function is to give notice <br />to those subsequently desiring to initiate similar rights, it must necessarily be of such a character that they may fairly be <br />said to be thereby charged with at least such notice as would reasonably be calculated to put them on inquiry of the <br />prospective extent of the proposed use and consequent demand upon the water supply involved.... The matter does not <br />rest upon the intent of the claimant, but rather upon such outward, physical acts and manifestations in pursuance of such <br />intent as may be deemed sufficient to constitute notice to all who may come. This doctrine is for the benefit of the <br />claimant, and any tendency toward its abuse should be carefully scrutinized, lest injury result to the public in general in <br />the exercise of the inherent right to divert and appropriate water to beneficial uses in the light of conditions apparently <br />existing at the time, free from the burden of anticipating the purposes and claims of others not sufficiently indicated by <br />such physical acts as would charge ordinary intelligence with the nature, purpose and effect thereof." [Emphasis added] <br />Id. at 163. <br />MV <br />