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Show 168 COLORADO any other provision which the water judge deems proper in deter- mining the rights and interests of persons involved.143 In a recent case, the Colorado Supreme Court distinguished a change of point of return of irrigation or municipal effluent from other changes of water rights, holding that other appropriators had no vested rights to the maintenance by Denver of its original point of return of sewage effluent in the South Platte Kiver.144 Colorado law also authorizes practices of substitution or exchange of water in which individuals or private or public entities may pro- vide substituted supplies of water to appropriators senior to them to satisfy the rights of the senior. In return, the suppliers may then take and use amounts of water equivalent to the amounts supplied to the senior appropriator. A practice of substitution or exchange may constitute an appropriative right and may be adjudicated as any other right.145 3.4 Loss of Rights Colorado has no forfeiture statute. Water rights may be lost in whole or in part by abandonment. Abandonment has been defined by statute as "the termination of a water right in whole or in part as a result of the intent of the owner thereof to discontinue permanently the use of all or part of the water available thereunder." 146 Abandon- ment of a conditional water right occurs as a result of failure to de- velop the proposed appropriation with reasonable diligence.147 A recently enacted law provides for an administrative determina- tion of abandonment by the division engineer when he prepares biennial water rights tabulations.148 These tabulations are routinely subjected to judicial scrutiny by the water judge at the times when they are presented pursuant to law for adjudication.149 For purposes of this procedure, nonuse of a water right for 10 years or more creates a rebuttable presumption of abandonment.150 Water rights may also be lost through adverse use.151 Adverse use for the statutory period of 18 years 152 or use under claim and color of title coupled with payment of assessed taxes for a statutory period of 7 years 153 may ripen into a water right. Application of the doc- trine of adverse use to appropriate rights is sharply limited by the rule that water not needed by an appropriator for beneficial use by him belongs to other appropriators on the stream and is thus not available to be subjected to adverse use.154 Similarly, reservoir seep- age that is allowed to return to the stream is public water available for appropriation and is not subject to use adverse to the owner of the reservoir.165 "sColo. Rev. Stat. Ann., sec. 148-21-20(6) (supp. 1971). 1U Metropolitan Denver Sewage Disposal District v. Farmers Res. d Irr. Co., 499 P. 2d 1190 (1972). ^Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann., sec. 148-11-25(2) (supp. 1969). i«Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann., sec. 148-21-3(13) (supp. 1969). "»Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann., sec. 148-21-3(14) (supp. 1969). 1(18Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann., sec. 148-21-28(1) (supp. 1969). ""Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann., sec. 148-21-28(2) (e) (supp. 1969). if* Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann., sec. 148-21-28(2)(j) (supp. 1969). v*Lomas v. Webster, 109 Colo. 107, 122 P. 2d 248 (1942). ia»Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann., sec. 118-7-1 (supp. 1967). iss Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann., Bee. 118-7-8 (1963). **Granby Ditch d Res. Co. v. Hallenbeck, 127 Colo. 236, 255 P. 2d 965 (1953). i^Lamont v. Riverside Irr. Dist., 498 P. 2d 1150 (Colo. 1972). |