31 miles of the Cache La Poudre River were designated as wild and scenic on October 30th, 1986. A Wild and Scenic River is an entire river, or portion of one, that is protected from detrimental development, degradation of water quality and destruction of its natural system by water diversions or dams.

However, the Poudre still has quite a network of plumbing, built long before 1986, to regulate the flow of the river. Reservoirs built on tributaries hold a reserve of water for late summer irrigation on the plains. A slew of ditches redirect snowmelt that would normally drain into other river basins back to the Poudre. This system helps the Poudre maintain good flows often into late August.

In fact, water from the Poudre was first diverted for irrigation in 1867, making it the first river in the state to be put to use in this fashion. Today it is argued that water rights for farmlands are actually more valuable than the land itself.