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<br /> <br />provided for each acre of land annexed. When the city of Fort <br />collins agreed to annex land for the construction of the new <br />Anheuser-Busch brewery, it required the company to acquire water <br />and turn it over to the City. The water rights furnished to <br />cities by developers in Northern Colorado usually consist of <br />shares of nearby agricultural ditch or reservoir companies or <br />Colorado-Big Thompson project units which historically have <br />served the land being annexed. <br /> <br />As municipalities build their water rights inventories, <br />and weigh whether to make new appropriations or to purchase <br />established water rights, other important policies intervene. <br />Colorado has a pure free market economy in the initial water <br />rights transaction, but the market is influenced by the ability <br />to put water to a changed use under Colorado law. <br /> <br />RULES GOVERNING WATER RIGHTS TRANSFERS ARE NECESSARY <br />TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS <br /> <br />Left to itself, the market transfer of water could <br />interfere with the vested water rights of others and cause severe <br />dislocations in local and regional economies. . Thus, the Colorado <br />General Assembly and courts have developed, and continue to <br />refine, an extensive body of law governing changes to water <br />rights. Contrary to current criticism by some writers and <br />academicians, these rules do not unnecessarily block water <br />transfers but, rather, work to ensure that acquisition of a <br />senior right, together with its priority date, is not used as a <br />siphon to drain-off water from rights which belong to others, <br />including juniors. <br /> <br />A. Changes of Water Right are Limited to the Historic <br />consumptive Use Made Under the Right. <br /> <br />A water right, conditional or absolute, is a vested <br />property right and consists of the entitlement to divert, or <br /> <br />-4- <br />