Whats been accomplished under our current instream flow law so far?
As of January 1, 2004 the department has filed for 89 instream flow water rights. Of these, 33 have been approved by the State Engineer and passed on to the Board of Control for final adjudication. Of this number 4 have actually been adjudicated. These filings have been made to protect natural base flow conditions on about 417 miles of streams, mostly on state and federal lands. Only 3 filings have been made on streams passing through private lands – all at the request of the landowners. The priority dates of all filings are from 1986 to 2003, which makes them junior to all previously issued water rights. This means that all water rights that were applied for before instream flow water right applications were submitted are allowed to take their legal limit of water before water can be left in the stream for fisheries. Many of the streams where we have filed for instream flow water rights are among the more popular with resident and non-resident anglers. Instream flow water rights have
