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574 Colo. 594 PACIFIC REPORTER, 2d SERIES i other means; and further that the word "divert" meant to carry the water away from the bed or channel of the stream. The court rejected both of these arguments in upholding a valid appropriation. In 1969 the first statutory requirement of diversion came into being: "(5) `Diversion' or `divert' means re- moving water from its natural course or location, or controlling water in its natu- ral course or location, by means of a ditch, canal, flume, reservoir, bypass, pipeline, conduit, well, pump, or other structure or device. "(6) `Appropriation' means the diver- sion of a certain portion of the waters of the state and the application of the same to a beneficial use." 1969 Perm.Supp., C.R.S.1963, 148 -21 -3. In 1973, four years later, the General Assembly made the modification here in- volved. It deleted the diversion require- ments from the definition of an appropria- tion and at the same time in S.B. 97 enact- ed: "For the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations, `benefi- cial use' shall also include the appropria- tion by the statute of Colorado in the manner prescribed by law of such mini- mum flows between specific points or lev- els for and on natural streams and lakes as are required to preserve the natural environment to a reasonable degree." In Colo. River Dist. v. Rocky Mountain Power Co., 158 Colo. 331, 406 P.2d 798 (1965), the Colorado River Water Conserva- tion District played a somewhat different role. This District was created by statute in 1937 and was given the power, among others, "To 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, and to use such water in connection with retaining ponds for the propagation of fish for the benefit of the public;" Section 37- 46- 107(1)(j). Under this power it brought the action to preserve and keep water in the stream to the extent necessary for the preservation of fish life. This court affirmed the dismissal of the District's claims. The court considered this as an attempted appropriation of "a mini- mum flow of water . . . for piscatori- al purposes without diversion." The opin- ion continues. "By the enactment of [the statutory pow- er quoted above] the legislature did not intend to bring about such an extreme departure from well established doctrine, and we hold that no such departure was brought about by said statute." Without at this juncture commenting upon the subject of "minimum flow," it is obvious that the General Assembly in the enactment of S.B. 97 certainly did intend to have appropriations for piscatorial purposes without diversion. We hold that under S.B. 97 the Colorado Water Board can make an in- stream appro- priation without diversion in the conven- tional sense. We wish to emphasize that we are not hereby causing any erosion of the many opinions of this court, some of which are cited above, holding that a diver- sion is an essential element of the water appropriations involved in those cases. The many cases are distinguishable. Several re- ally had no issue as to diversion. Others involved (1) a diversion (proposed or actual), (2) a beneficial use (involved or contemplat- ed) clearly requiring a diversion, (3) situa- tions in which the evidence and measure- ment of an appropriative intent could be predicated upon only the capacity to divert, (4) circumstances where there could not be a bona fide appropriation without a physical diversion, or (5) matters in which a lack of diversion violated the principle of maximum utilization enunciated in Fellhauer v. Peo- ple, 167 Colo. 320, 447 P.2d 986 (1968), and Colorado Springs v. Bender, 148 Colo. 458, 366 P.2d 552 (1961). Colo. Water • Dist. v. Rocky Mountain Power Co., supra, involved a situation which this court found to be an appropriation of minimum flow of water and, consequently, a forbidden riparian right. Irrespective of