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applicants claim to divert the water on the basis of several boulder formations in the channel that <br />extend up into the bank. These structures do not remotely resemble either traditional control <br />structures or the Power Dam that incorporated a boat chute and fish ladder recognized in City of <br />Thornton v. City of Fort Collins 830 P.2d 915 (Colo. 1992). <br />Second, the Applicants contend that the traditional concepts of beneficial use, <br />reasonableness, duty of water, and waste, which would otherwise prevent or limit the <br />amounts and times of the applicants' proposed appropriations, should not apply to their <br />applications. Rather, the applicants seek essentially all of the water in the stream for use <br />in the stream. The requirements of diversion and of beneficial use have served as <br />essential "sideboards" in the practice of Colorado water law, protecting the prior <br />appropriation doctrine and promoting the maximum utilization of water by requiring <br />water users to demonstrate an ability to capture, possess and control water, by limiting <br />appropriations to reasonable amounts, and by prohibiting waste. The applicants' overly <br />broad definitions of diversion and of beneficial use would effectively remove these <br />historic sideboards. <br />The State simply asks this Court to apply definitions of "diversion" and <br />"beneficial use" that are consistent with the history of Colorado water law, that honor the <br />doctrines of prior appropriation, reasonableness and maximum utilization, and that allow <br />the State and Division Engineers to perform their statutory duty to properly and <br />efficiently administer water rights. <br />STATEMENT OF FACTS <br />In Case No. OOCW259, Eagle River Water and Sanitation District (the <br />"Eagle District" or "the District ") applied for water rights for a whitewater course (the <br />"Vail course ") designed and constructed by the Town of Vail ( "Vail "). The Eagle District <br />was not involved in the design and construction of the course, in the decision to build the <br />Vail course, or in deciding the purpose - of the course, and will have no involvement in the <br />operation of the course. The District filed the application to obtain the water rights for <br />the Vail whitewater course, not to use the water for its own purposes, but rather to protect <br />the District's ability to obtain new or exchange existing domestic or snowmaking rights <br />upstream of the course. The District and the city of Vail have signed an agreement <br />stating that the District will selectively subordinate the Vail course rights in preference to <br />new upstream domestic or snowmaking rights the District administers on its own behalf <br />or on behalf of its contractees. <br />The Vail whitewater course is located within the Gore Creek channel, and <br />consists of three at- grade, ungrouted, artificially constructed rock and plant formations. <br />Vail has at various times described these rock and plant formations as "landscaping" or as <br />"grading" of the stream channel. Water flows over the top of these rock formations, <br />flowing essentially unimpeded down the stream channel. <br />In its application, the Eagle District is claiming water rights for these rock <br />formations in amounts representing the entire hydrograph for April, August, September, <br />