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\ . Reservation of water. A water right to maintain a specified instream flow or level of water at a specific point 41 or part of a stream or water body for entire year or specified period of time. Must be for one of the recognized instream uses. From 1980 Ie . slation. Entities Authorized to Request/Recommend Instream Flows . Division of Water (A]aska Department of Natura] Resources, DNR) administers Alaska Water Use Act (]966) (Harle and Estes ]993), this is now the Department of Mining. Land and Water . "The Statewide Aquatic Resources Coordination Unit (SARCU) was established by the Alaska Department ofFish and Game (ADF&G) as one of its tools for meeting water demands of the department for sustaining healthy fish and wildlife production." . "The SARCU provides departmental coordination, scientific expertise, core personnel, data collection and analyses, and other relevant scientific infonnation and actions needed by the ADF&G to comply with state, federal, and local laws. Fish, wildlife. and aquatic data are obtained, analyzed, and effectively used to make recommendations for sustaining fish and wildlife production, including waterway access. Examples of these actions are to quantity instream flow requirements for fish and wildlife, quantity diversionary and water withdrawal requirements for hatcheries and other departmental facilities, file for water rights for instream flow and out of stream uses. and provide scientific based recommendations to state federal and local permitting authorities for avoiding and mitigating impacts of water related developments to fish and wildlife production. The multi-divisiona] unit is headquartered in Anchorage with staff based in Anchorage and Juneau (Douglas Island ." htl ://www.sf.ad~.state.ak.us/statewide/instflow/islhome.cfm on Jul 13,2004 Process for Securing Instream Flow Rights or Reservations . . In addition to further defining the legal significance of instream reservations, Alaska's 1980 Instream Flow Law outlines the procedure for establishing instream flows. [AK ST 46.]5.145] In 1983 DNR regnlations on a more detailed procedure for establishing instream flows were adopted and later amended in ] 990. In general, Alaska regnlations require vigorous documentation by an instream flow applicant prior to granting of right. Requirements for an applicant in Alaska are relatively more demanding than those found in most other western states (McKinney and Taylor 1988). The current regnlation II AK ADC 93.142 specifies a detailed list of information that must be included in an application including: . The purpose of the proposed reservation . Location of the proposed reservation . The need for the reservation . The quantity proposed to be reserved . Method used to quantity the requested flow or lake level . Data substantiating the request . An application fee (Fees for instream flow application is presently $500 per application. Annual fees of $50 are required for non-domestic uses of more than 1500 gallons per day. State agencies are exempt.) II AK ADC 93.142 also specifies procedure for notice, assignment of priority date, and agency hearings for instream applications. . Public notice is required once in a newspaper. Individua] notice must be served to the Alaska Departments ofFish and Game and Environmental Conservation, any federal, state, or local government in whose jurisdiction the proposed reservation would occur, and any others who may have requested notice. . Generally, priority date is established by the date and time that an application is judged complete. Applicants also have the opponunity to me instream flow applications and receive earlier priority dates by filing estimated quantities in advance of data collection. After filing for a reservation, applicants then have up to three years to complete data collection and analysis to fully quantity the proposed reservation. . Informal hearin ~ on r sed reservation of water IDa be held ifDNR determines the are neces . . . Alaska DRAFT 2