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<br />habitat resource to the local community or is that water more valuable elsewhere? Do the <br />improvements to water quality that will result from reduced return flows offset the likely loss <br />of wetlands? Is preservation of artificial, irrigation-induced wetlands to be preferred over <br />efficiency changes that result in improved streamflows and benefits to riparian habitat? Can <br />salvage reduce the pressure to completely dry-up irrigated acreage as a source of municipal <br />water? How can efficiency efforts by groundwater consumers and pumpers' reliance on <br />surface irrigation losses be recognized and protected consistent with the state policy to <br />encourage conjunctive use of tributary groundwater and surface supplies? <br /> <br />C. Legal Questions <br /> <br />Does strict enforcement of the "no injury" rule, as currently applied, prevent creative and <br />more efficient use of our water supplies by focusing too narrowly on maintenance of the <br />status quo, and do plans for augmentation provide adequate relief to rigid application of the <br />"no injury" rule? <br /> <br />Does or should a water right include the right to transfer changes in historical diversions <br />to new uses while retaining the original priority date, subject only to the "no injury" rule? <br />Would such an entitlement reward previously wasteful or inefficient practices and give <br />credence to the disputed maxim "use it or lose it"? Would retention of the original priority <br />- date for saved water be speculative in that it allows a priority date that predates actual <br />formation of the intent to appropriate? <br /> <br />Do upstream junior water right holders have any reliance claims to saved water? Such <br />claim would be based on their expectations, formed at the time of their appropriation, that <br />inefficient, but senior downstream practices would someday be improved, thereby reducing <br />the senior calls on their rights. Is such an expectation reasonable and justified, and is it <br />protected by the "no injury" rule? Even if there was no such express expectation on the <br />junior's part at the time of appropriation, does the prior appropriation system fairly imply <br />a gradual attrition of senior rights through abandonment which eventually leads to a better <br />water supply for juniors? <br /> <br />How should stateline delivery obligations created by compact or court decree be <br />accounted for when evaluating a saved water proposal? Upstream juniors, potentially <br />subject to a compact call, may assert that return flows which currently flow out of state <br />benefit them and allow additional upstream depletions, Do we know enough about how and <br />when a compact call will be administered in each basin to allow a senior the right to <br />transfer return flows? <br /> <br />Does an adequate rationale exist for creating different salvage entitlements in various <br />regions of the state? Each basin can be considered unique in terms of hydrology, water <br />development, local economies, and compact obligations, The prior appropriation system, <br />however, has always included the right to take water from any basin for use anywhere c:lse <br />in the state, Can or should a salvaged or saved water entitlement be limited to certain <br />activities, such as "that resulting from federal programs"? <br /> <br />24 <br />