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districts of some sort); and (2) the statutory requirement that transferred water be "surplus. to a district's needs (unused surface water is increasingly being reallocated for groundwater recharge).91 Oregon's 1987 legislation (Ore. Rev. Stat., 537.455 et seq.) stipulates water transfer criteria in the statute. It requires a right holder intending to conserve water for transfer to submit a conservation plan to the Water Resources Commission (WRC) for approval. Once the plan is approved, the conserved water is assigned a priority date comparable to the original water right. The legislation states that conserved water remaining in a stream is not considered abandoned. Transfers outside a water district's boundaries require district approval. The statute also incorporates strong instream flow protections by empowering WRC to dedicate up to 25 percent of the conserved water contained in a transfer application to maintaining instream flows. Oregon, like California, has witnessed no water transfer activity attributable to its law to date (although applications for transfers have been received). The reasons include: (1) lack of water use records to document the amount of conserved water; (2) uncertainty over the definition of water that is "irretrievably lost" (which is a necessary component of conserved water); (3) concern among water right holders-especially agriculture--that transferring conserved water will limit their flexibility in shifting future cropping patterns; (4) farmers' distrust over granting instream flow rights; and (5) inadequate financing available for water conservation measures.92 Conservation-transfer legislation similar to that in California and Oregon narrowly failed in the Colorado Legislature during the 1991 session. House Bill 1110 passed the House but was defeated in the Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy 47