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decree cannot divert more water than can be used beneficially." Matter of Board of County <br />Com'rs of County of Arapahoe, 891 P.2d 952, 960 (Colo. 1995) (citation omitted) (Arapahoe <br />County 1). The bar against waste simply does not include any judgment about the use for which <br />a water rights holder is diverting water. <br />The State and State Amici also argue that the "duty of water" concept should limit <br />Golden's use. Opening Brief, p. 27; Amid Curiae Brief of Colorado Springs Utilities, et al. (C. <br />Springs Brief), p. 18. However, again, the "duty of water" relates to how much water a diverter <br />needs to divert to assure that enough water reaches his fields to water the growing plants, and not <br />to the underlying beneficial use, which is irrigation to produce a crop. For example, in parts of <br />the state, courts recognized a local "duty of water," consistent with local irrigation history and <br />practice. See, e.g., Needle Rock Ditch Co. v. Ankenman, 108 Colo. 443, 444, 120 P.2d 187 <br />(194 1) (duty of water in water district 40 was 1 cubic foot per second for 40 acres of land). The <br />courts simply do not apply the "duty of water" concept to evaluate an irrigator's choice of crop, <br />location of field or number of cuttings; in fact, this Court has defined the duty of water as <br />permitting the maximum crop. Farmers Highline Canal & Res. Co. v. Golden, 129 Colo. 575, <br />584 -85, 272 P.2d 629, 634 (1954). Effectively, then, the "duty of water" principal has its <br />statutory expression (if any) in the need to use "reasonably efficient practices" for diversion or <br />control, §37- 92- 103(4), C.R.S. (2001) not in any limit on what constitutes a beneficial use. <br />Finally, the statute's "reasonable and appropriate" standard also modifies the amount of <br />water necessary to achieve a beneficial use, not the nature of the beneficial use itself. The <br />"reasonable and appropriate" standard is thus not an entree for the water judge to weigh the <br />merits of a particular appropriator's choice of beneficial use. Rather it is, again, a limit on the <br />4 <br />