Hydrohistorian
Laramie River
Who may take water from the Laramie River, who is calling for it today, and how it is running, compiled from Colorado Division of Water Resources records. Click anything on the map for its record.
Laramie River on the ground — the ditches, wells, reservoirs and gages of Water District 48 · clicktap anything for its record
The well-permit cells in view, as a table
Each row is one ~1-mile cell (0.02°) with the permits the file spots inside it, split into water-supply permits and monitoring holes (DWR’s two monitoring categories: drilled to look at the water, not to pump it). These are permits, not wells: a permit is a piece of paper, and the file does not say which were drilled. Spotting is the file’s own, about a mile at best, which is why the cells are no finer.
| Lat | Lon | Water-supply permits | Monitoring holes |
|---|
Browse this district’s ditches, gages, reservoirs, wells and springs as a list.
The Laramie River is critically low for late September -- 22% of normal flow. No call that the record places on it is active right now. DWR's statements do not settle whether 7 more calls reach it.
Schematic
Historical
Evolution of the network
Trends
Source Our computation, no independent reference · computed here from the screened DWR record Source Our computation, no independent reference · no independent reference; see /methods
This year, in context
In the weeks around 2026-09-27 (the newest reading on file), flows at the 1 ranked gage are running at a median 74% of their own long-term norm for this window — 1 below a typical year, 0 at or above. Driest relative to its record: LARAMIE RIVER NEAR GLENDEVEY, CO., ranking 22nd lowest of 103 years.
How this comparison is made
Each gage's mean flow over the 3 days either side of 2026-09-27, compared with the same window in every year of its own record — so a gage is only ever measured against itself, and gages with no record in the window are counted out rather than guessed.
Gage flow trend & changepoints
What counts as a trend here
Computed 2026-10-11 19:45 from 6 gage(s) with cached period-of-record data. The series is each gage's annual mean flow in cfsCubic feet per second, a rate of flow. One cfs running for a day is about 2 acre-feet. (years with ≥300 days of record). Mann-Kendall (trend, with the Hamed–Rao correction for serial correlation — persistence can otherwise fake significance) and Pettitt (changepoint) both require at least 8 years spanning at least 10 years of record. A gage below that reports no signal — which is not the same as “no change.” The %-per-decade figure is the same Sen slope divided by the gage's median annual flow, for comparing across streams of very different size; it is omitted for near-ephemeral channels where the median is too small to divide by honestly.
Of the 6 gages with enough record, 1 is trending down and 0 up, and 2 carry a detected shift. The clearest is Laramie River near Glendevey, its annual mean flow changing -3.32 cfs per decade (-4.4% of its median annual flow) over 77 years (p=0.0276). The other 2 show no clear signal either way. 2 transbasin gages meter imported or exported water — marked ⇆ below and kept out of these counts, because that flow is an operator's decision, not the basin's hydrology (all transbasin diversions).
Drought history, cost, and the four-century context moved to the Drought tab.
| Gage | Trend | Change / decade cfs · % of median annual flow | Significance | Years | Changepoint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
▸
⇆
Laramie Poudre Tunnel @ 10 Ft Parshall Flume LAPTUNCO |
↓ decreasing | -1.20 cfs -5.1% | p<0.001 | 79 | ~1966 |
|
▸
⇆
Skyline Ditch at Chambers Lake SKYDCLCO |
↓ decreasing | -0.82 cfs | p=0.002 | 87 | ~1975 |
|
▸
Laramie River near Glendevey LARRIVCO |
↓ decreasing | -3.32 cfs -4.4% | p=0.028 | 77 | ~1929 |
|
▸
Joe Wright Creek above Joe Wright Reservoir JOECRECO |
no clear trend | +0.76 cfs +7.7% | p=0.080 | 44 | ~1990 |
2 other gage(s) show no significant trend or changepoint (not shown).
How the measurement network itself changed
This basin was not always measured the way it is today — the API-era record is dense and recent, the early record sparse. 4 gage(s) and 52 structure(s) report in 2026, but structure reporting only reached half its modern level around ~1974. Every historical claim below is checked against this: long-term shifts that co-move with the growth of the network carry an explicit measurement-evolution caution, and abandonment screens whose idleness begins before the modern reporting era are flagged †.
| Decade | Gages with data (median yr) | Structures reporting (median yr) |
|---|---|---|
| 1900s | 1 | 0 |
| 1910s | 1 | 0 |
| 1920s | 2 | 0 |
| 1930s | 4 | 0 |
| 1940s | 4 | 0 |
| 1950s | 4 | 0 |
| 1960s | 4 | 0 |
| 1970s | 5 | 50 |
| 1980s | 4 | 47 |
| 1990s | 5 | 47 |
| 2000s | 5 | 51 |
| 2010s | 5 | 52 |
| 2020s | 5 | 52 |
Mass-balance (network closure) trend
Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 25% of 107 schematic-relevant structures. 0 year(s) clear the 30% coverage gate so far -- the trend activates automatically once qualifying years span a full decade. No action needed; the nightly backfill keeps extending the record.
Reach gain/loss shifts (1950–2026)
Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to 1950 (454 reach-snapshots) — which reaches gain or lose water, and how that has shifted across decades. Each shift is cross-checked against the observation record above: as more diversions became metered, "unaccounted" water shrinks mechanically, which can masquerade as a hydrologic shift.
No reach shows a statistically significant long-term gain/loss shift.
Cross-gage pattern fingerprint
Not enough gages with a long enough common-coverage window yet to fingerprint shared patterns.
Data provenance & quality
Where these numbers come from and how far they can be trusted. Grade C (3/6 points) — the components below are the finding; the letter alone is not. Sources: DWR HydroBase snapshot HydroBase_CO_20260928 (imported 2026-10-04) for history, plus the CDSS REST API for current conditions.
| Check | State | What was measured |
|---|---|---|
| gage freshness | stale | newest gage reading is 14 day(s) old (target 7) |
| diversion record | expected-lag | newest diversion record is 399 day(s) old (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears) |
| structure coverage | sparse | 25% of schematic structures have data |
Independent check: PASS — 100.0000% agreement across 116,356 stored values re-checked against DWR's authoritative record (HydroBase_CO_20260707), over 20 structures. 0 disagreement(s) beyond a 0.01 cfs tolerance. Checked 2026-08-19; a rotating sample covers the whole basin across successive runs, and the structures this report cites are checked every time.
Federal cross-check: PASS — 100.00% day-level agreement with USGS's own published records for the same gages, across 3 co-listed station(s) and 44,121 overlapping days (within max(2%, 0.5 cfs) daily). Pre-1950 records at some gages carry known between-agency day-stamp and transcription differences — scored at each year's best ±1-day alignment; residual disagreement is real historical divergence, flagged for review.
6 gage(s) / 170,891 daily values (1904-07-01–2026-09-27); 61 structure(s) with diversion records; 143 with decreed rights. Methodology has not yet had independent expert review — treat every figure as an advisory screen, not an administrative or legal conclusion.
Groundwater
43% are constructed wells; 8% tie to a decreed structure. A permit is permission to drill, not a water right; most here are exempt household wells. More in three things called “well”, or turn on the Well permits chip on the map above to see where they sit.
Permits issued here, by year
80 located water-supply permits with an issue date, 1967 to 2026; half of them had been issued by 1996, and the busiest year was 1980 with 6. The district’s 8 monitoring holes are counted apart: they are drilled to look, not to pump. A permit is not a well, and the year is the date the paper was issued, not a drilling date. The 108 above counts every permit on file here; 20 of them have no usable location or no issue date and are not in this chart.
water-supply permits issued that year monitoring holes, when shown
The counts by year, as a table
| Year | Issued | Monitoring holes | Water-supply | Issued through that year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 1974 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 1975 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| 1976 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| 1977 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| 1980 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 12 |
| 1983 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 15 |
| 1984 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 16 |
| 1985 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 18 |
| 1987 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 21 |
| 1989 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 24 |
| 1991 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 25 |
| 1992 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 26 |
| 1993 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 31 |
| 1994 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 34 |
| 1995 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 40 |
| 1996 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 43 |
| 1997 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 49 |
| 1998 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 52 |
| 1999 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 55 |
| 2000 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 58 |
| 2001 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 59 |
| 2002 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 61 |
| 2003 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 63 |
| 2005 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 65 |
| 2006 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 68 |
| 2007 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 72 |
| 2008 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 77 |
| 2013 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 78 |
| 2014 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 79 |
| 2015 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 80 |
| 2016 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 81 |
| 2019 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 83 |
| 2021 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 84 |
| 2022 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 85 |
| 2023 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 86 |
| 2024 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 87 |
| 2026 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 88 |
Every district in the file on one scale · the whole file, one year at a time · Plate 4 of the Driller’s Atlas.
What drillers reached, township by township
3 PLSS townships here where at least 5 water-supply permits naming the same aquifer filed a depth (51 permits in all). Each column is one township, six miles square, on one scale to 800 ft below ground: a faint lane spans the 10th to 90th percentile of where the permits naming that aquifer stopped, the solid band their screens, the tick the median. This is the permit file’s view of the ground — the aquifer is the name the driller wrote, the band is where those holes ended — not a geologic map, and a township is as fine as it gets. Monitoring holes are left out. 2 of these townships straddle a district line and are filed here because most of their permits are.
39 · 91% here
7 · 91% here
5
unnamed faint = where the permits naming it stopped (10th–90th pct) · solid = their screens · tick = median · ft below ground as filed
Every township here, as a table
| Township | Share of its permits in this district | Aquifer named | Permits with a depth | Drilled depth p10 / p50 / p90, ft | Screen top p10 / p50 / p90, ft | Screen bottom p10 / p50 / p90, ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T10N R76W 6th PM | 91% | unnamed | 39 | 47 / 120 / 380 | 19 / 50 / 151 | 36 / 110 / 311 |
| T11N R76W 6th PM | 91% | unnamed | 7 | 46 / 225 / 760 | — | — |
| T9N R76W 6th PM | 100% | unnamed | 5 | 42 / 290 / 452 | — | — |
These columns on the map · Plate 6 of the Driller’s Atlas.
The Driller’s Atlas · Plate 2 A cross-section nobody surveyed
Every permitted well within a few miles of the line, drawn from the ground to its drilled depth as the driller filed it. The bright part of each stroke is the perforated casing — where the well actually takes water — coloured by the aquifer named on the permit. Nobody arranged these; the aquifers arrange themselves.
The ground each well hangs from is a 1-km elevation model sampled at the point the permit was spotted, so the profile is real topography smoothed to about a kilometre — peaks are shaved, valleys filled a little — and the depths are the driller’s, measured down from that ground.
Hover or arrow through the strokes to read a well.
The same corridor as a table
| Miles from A | Wells drawn | Median depth (ft) | With a screen | Most-named aquifer | No depth filed | Ground, ft above sea level (median) |
|---|
Bins run from end A to end B of the line. “Most-named aquifer” is the family most often named on permits in the bin, with its count; permits naming no aquifer are the majority of the file and are not a family.
Snow and runoff
Source Independent agency measurement · fetched 2026-10-14 · verify at NRCS report generator ↗ Source Our computation, scored against a reference · NRCS forecast, graded here against the gage record
Snow-water equivalent, WY2027
| SNOTEL site | Elev (ft) | SWE (in) | Median (in) | % of median | Typical peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joe Wright | 10140 | 0.2 | 0.4 | — | May 5 (24.0 in) |
| Roach | 9710 | 0.0 | 0.1 | — | April 25 (17.5 in) |
NRCS SNOTEL, daily. Sites are assigned to the district whose boundary contains them — the snow that feeds this district can also sit in a neighboring headwater district.
Two ways a snow year goes wrong (1980–2026)
A bad snow year here comes in two flavors (both called snow droughtA winter that shorts the snowpack. It happens two ways: a dry one, where the snow never comes, and a warm one, where near-normal snow falls but melts off weeks early -- and the river feels them differently.), and the river feels them differently. In 4 of the last 47 winters the snow never came — the pack peaked below 80% of its median. In 2 more, the snow came but left early — a near-normal peak melted out two weeks or more ahead of its usual date, sending the water down before the season needed it.
The snow never came: 1981, 2002, 2012, 2026. The snow left early: 1987, 1989.
Computed by this site from 2 SNOTEL sites’ full daily records (NRCS AWDB, back to 1980). Each year is measured against each site’s own multi-decade median — not the 1991–2020 normal the chart above uses — so the 1980s grade against a fair baseline. Peak and melt-out need 85% of the season’s days on the record; thin years are dropped, not guessed. Derived from snow measurements alone — it cannot tell dry-from-warm causes apart, only what the snowpack did.
Drought
Source Our computation, no independent reference · computed here from the screened DWR record Source Independent agency measurement · fetched 2026-10-06 · verify at U.S. Drought Monitor ↗
Right now
This is the 23rd-driest week 39 in 103 years of record at LARAMIE RIVER NEAR GLENDEVEY, CO. (as of 2026-09-21; this week’s flow sits at the 22nd percentileRank against the record: a river at its 5th percentile is lower than it was in 95 of the past 100 years on this same date. for the date). On this week’s US Drought Monitor, Larimer County is 26% in D4 exceptional drought (2026-10-06).
Every year since 1904, week by week
Each thin row is a year at LARAMIE RIVER NEAR GLENDEVEY, CO.; each cell is one week’s flow ranked against the same calendar week of every other year — warm means dry for the date, blue wet, so seasonality cancels and droughts appear as warm bands. Gaps are missing record, never a dry river. Click a year to reconstruct it on the Historical tab.
This year against its analogs
Over the 29 weeks recorded so far, 2026’s weekly trace most resembles 2002 (mean gap 8.8 percentile points; next closest 1966 (15.0), 1931 (15.4)). The analog’s remainder is drawn as context — its ending is what happened to it, not a forecast for this year.
The Drought Monitor’s view since 2000
Mean share of area in each class across Larimer county — the counties this district’s gages sit in, which overlap the district imperfectly. The Drought Monitor weighs soils, vegetation and local reports; it is CONTEXT beside the river’s own record above, not the water-rights picture.
This basin’s droughts, by its own record
| Drought | Span | Weeks | Trough percentile | Flows recovered | Water table back |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| the 2018 drought | 2019-02-04 → 2019-09-02 | 30 | 4th (2019-04-22) | 0 weeks | — |
| the 2018 drought | 2017-12-25 → 2018-09-17 | 38 | 4th (2018-04-02) | 1 week | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 2015-12-07 → 2017-09-04 | 91 | 4th (2016-06-06) | 4 weeks | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 2015-02-23 → 2015-08-17 | 25 | 4th (2015-04-20) | 111 weeks | — |
| the 2012-13 drought | 2014-02-10 → 2014-08-18 | 27 | 4th (2014-03-31) | 0 weeks | — |
| the 2012-13 drought | 2012-10-29 → 2013-10-07 | 49 | 4th (2013-04-29) | 0 weeks | — |
| the 2002 drought | 2001-08-27 → 2003-09-08 | 106 | 5th (2002-10-28) | 0 weeks | — |
| the 1981 drought | 1981-07-27 → 1982-01-25 | 26 | 22nd (1981-09-28) | 2 weeks | — |
| the 1977 drought | 1977-03-07 → 1978-03-06 | 52 | 13th (1977-10-31) | 4 weeks | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 1966-09-26 → 1967-03-06 | 23 | 21st (1966-11-14) | 18 weeks | — |
| the 1950s drought | 1954-09-06 → 1955-02-14 | 23 | 24th (1954-11-15) | 40 weeks | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 1943-12-06 → 1944-09-25 | 42 | 20th (1944-06-26) | 45 weeks | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 1942-05-11 → 1943-03-29 | 46 | 24th (1942-05-18) | 4 weeks | — |
| the 1930s Dust Bowl drought | 1939-09-25 → 1940-09-02 | 49 | 14th (1939-12-18) | 5 weeks | — |
Detected mechanically: the 26-week smoothed percentile below the 30th for at least 20 weeks; recovered on regaining the 50th. The water-table clock compares each monitoring well against its own pre-drought median (the 3 years before onset) and dates the year the median well got back — the aquifer remembers longest, and “still below” is a finding, not a gap. The knobs are stated because the episode list depends on them — a different reasonable choice merges or splits episodes at the edges. Names are attached where an episode overlaps a drought Colorado already talks about.
What drought has cost here
Since 1991, federal crop insurance has paid $194,432 in drought-caused claims across Larimer county — 0.8% of all insured crop losses there. The worst year was 2017 ($39,168).
USDA crop-insurance indemnities where the recorded cause of loss is drought, summed over the counties this district's gages sit in. Counties overlap water districts imperfectly, and insured-crop claims are a floor on drought damage, not a total. Source: USDA RMA cause-of-loss files.
When this basin claimed its water
Every bar is a year’s new appropriations (62 rights across 107 years of shared record), colored by that year’s wetness from the barcode above. Here the correlation is +0.02 — essentially no wet-dry pattern; here, law and settlement set the pace, not the weather. Across the state both behaviors exist: ephemeral southwest basins file after wet demonstrations, transbasin-source basins under drought — and the biggest statewide filing waves sat in the 1950s drought and after 2002, not in the wet 1980s–90s.
Appropriation dates are the CLAIMED initiation of a right, not the courthouse filing date; the record is survivor-biased (abandoned claims are absent, so failed dry-era scrambles are undercounted); and the big 1960s and 2000s spikes sit on legal events — the pre-1969-Act adjudication era and 2000s legislation — not on weather. A correlation here is a description, never a cause.
New to how a dry winter becomes a call on the river? Anatomy of a drought walks the chain in four minutes — snow to rivers to reservoirs to calls to the water table.
Legal
Who serves it, who protects it
Two registers the site fetches on their own schedules, read for this district. Neither is a DWR record; each links its own page and its agency.
Public water systems here
Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-06 · verify at EPA SDWIS ↗
No active public water system's service area or address falls in this district in EPA's file. All providers →
Instream-flow rights held by the state
Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-11 · verify at CWCB instream flow program ↗
17 reaches over 83.3 miles and 2 natural lake levels, held by the Colorado Water Conservation Board so that water stays in the stream. Every reach, with its schedule and case →
- Stuck Creek, 11.0 mi: 1 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1978, 78W9368) · dossier
- Stuck Creek, 10.89 mi: 2 (5/1 - 10/31), 1.1 (11/1 - 4/30) cfs (appropriated 2012, 12CW0267) · dossier
- Nunn Creek, 7.8 mi: 1 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1986, 86CW0296) · dossier
- Pole Creek, 7.34 mi: 1.25 (5/1 - 8/15), 0.8 (8/16 - 10/31), 0.25 (11/1 - 4/30) cfs (appropriated 2012, 12CW0266) · dossier
- Pole Creek, 7.0 mi: 0.5 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1986, 86CW0304) · dossier
- Forrester Creek, 6.87 mi: 1.7 (5/1 - 8/31), 1.1 (9/1 - 10/31), 0.7 (11/1 - 4/30) cfs (appropriated 2012, 12CW0272) · dossier
and 13 more on the district's instream-flow page.
What the water is like -- USGS sensors right now, where it has been sampled, the impaired-waters list, and how the tap water here stands with EPA -- is on the Water quality tab.
Designated groundwater basins are on their own page.
Source Adjudicated record · verify at DWR water-right transactions ↗ Source Adjudicated record · verify at DWR net amounts ↗
Decreed rights on this network run from 1880-06-01 to 2012-03-21. Of the 20 structures with a yield estimate, the median one’s senior right was in priority 23% of a median irrigation season and 0% in a dry one. 0 abandonment screens and 19 compliance flags are listed below as leads for review — a screen is not an abandonment and a flag is not a violation.
Rights on file: 159 across 143 structure(s); 0 structure(s) carry 0 court-case references. Advisory reading aids on public DWR data — not administrative or legal conclusions.
Is the river getting harder to divert from?
Over 1951–2025, administration on this district has been tightening: 2 of 3 measures (days under callA senior water right demanding its water, which requires everyone junior on that stream to stop diverting until it is satisfied., calls set, seniorityColorado shares water by date: the earlier the right, the stronger its claim when the river runs short. "First in time, first in right." of the controlling call) are moving toward more administration, none the other way.
The three measures, year by year
One row per whole calendar year inside the call record's coverage (75 years); partly-covered years are omitted rather than reported as quiet. Trend is Mann-Kendall with the same significance gate as every other trend on this site. Counted from DWR's published call record, which begins in the early 2000s: earlier years are absent, not quiet. A rise in the number of calls set can also reflect how finely an administrator records one episode, which is why days under call -- insensitive to that -- is the component to read first. Advisory summary of the public record, not an administrative finding.
| Year | Days under call | Calls set | Controlling priority (median) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 309 | 220 | 1873-06-30 |
| 2015 | 329 | 129 | 1870-06-01 |
| 2016 | 366 | 126 | 1875-06-30 |
| 2017 | 354 | 159 | 1881-02-01 |
| 2018 | 365 | 174 | 1876-05-10 |
| 2019 | 363 | 201 | 1881-02-01 |
| 2020 | 365 | 126 | 1869-04-01 |
| 2021 | 349 | 122 | 1867-04-15 |
| 2022 | 361 | 142 | 1867-04-15 |
| 2023 | 331 | 141 | 1869-04-01 |
| 2024 | 366 | 128 | 1881-02-01 |
| 2025 | 365 | 265 | 1881-02-01 |
Why diversions stopped — call-based explanations
Sustained diversion stops matched to senior administrative calls.
- LINK DITCH 1 (4800505) DWR↗ stopped 2025-08-24 (31+ days) — call at SWADLEY LONGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- LINK DITCH 1 (4800505) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-27 (15+ days) — call at PIONEER UNION DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- SMITHS BROWN DITCH (4800513) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-10 (6+ days) — call at WARD DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- SCHNITGER DITCH (4800556) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-06 (7+ days) — call at OSBORNE CAYWOOD DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- LA GARDE DITCH 1 (4800558) DWR↗ stopped 2025-06-22 (18+ days) — call at NEW CACHE LA POUDRE CO DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- BRITISH CREEK DITCH 2 (4800548) DWR↗ stopped 2025-06-08 (8+ days) — call at OSBORNE CAYWOOD DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- MANSFIELD DITCH 2 (4800519) DWR↗ stopped 2025-05-29 (14+ days) — call at OSBORNE CAYWOOD DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- TIMOTHY DITCH (4800507) DWR↗ stopped 2024-10-30 (209+ days) — call at HARRIMAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- LINK DITCH 1 (4800505) DWR↗ stopped 2024-08-18 (257+ days) — call at BIG T PLATTE R DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- JIM CREEK DITCH (4800549) DWR↗ stopped 2024-08-11 (296+ days) — call at BIG T PLATTE R DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- MANSFIELD DITCH (4800518) DWR↗ stopped 2024-08-04 (285+ days) — call at BIG T PLATTE R DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- MANSFIELD DITCH 2 (4800519) DWR↗ stopped 2024-08-04 (285+ days) — call at BIG T PLATTE R DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
Right yield — how often could these rights actually divert?
Share of irrigation-season days each structure's rights were not called out, derived from the 22-year district-scoped call record (senior right = floor, junior right = ceiling constraint). Call-record-derived; DWR's own analysis governs where available.
| Structure | Senior priority | Senior right: median / dry yr | Junior right: median / dry yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| LARAMIE RIVER DITCH (4800577) DWR↗ | 1891-08-07 | 24.5% / 0.0% | 24.5% / 0.0% |
| LARAMIE RIVER TUNNEL SYS (4800576) DWR↗ | 1902-08-25 | 14.8% / 0.0% | 14.8% / 0.0% |
| SAND CREEK DITCH SYSTEM (4800572) DWR↗ | 1899-06-15 | 17.8% / 0.0% | 17.8% / 0.0% |
| RAWAH LOWER SUPPLY DITCH (4800500) DWR↗ | 1902-08-25 | 14.8% / 0.0% | 14.8% / 0.0% |
| RAWAH DITCH LAR R SYS (4800582) DWR↗ | 1902-08-25 | 14.8% / 0.0% | 14.8% / 0.0% |
| BOB CREEK DITCH DIVR (4800573) DWR↗ | 1897-09-24 | 10.9% / 0.0% | 10.9% / 0.0% |
| MCINTYRE DITCH LAR R SYS (4800581) DWR↗ | 1902-08-25 | 14.8% / 0.0% | 14.8% / 0.0% |
| TIMOTHY DITCH (4800507) DWR↗ | 1904-07-05 | 14.8% / 0.0% | 14.8% / 0.0% |
| YELTON DITCH (4800514) DWR↗ | 1882-07-01 | 46.8% / 12.1% | 46.8% / 12.1% |
| JIMMY CREEK DITCH (4800553) DWR↗ | 1884-06-01 | 46.8% / 8.4% | 14.8% / 0.0% |
| MANSFIELD DITCH 3 (4800580) DWR↗ | 1904-09-01 | 14.8% / 0.0% | 14.8% / 0.0% |
| LONE TREE DITCH (4800535) DWR↗ | 1894-10-24 | 22.2% / 0.0% | 22.2% / 0.0% |
Compliance screens (19 advisory flags)
Screened 56 of 143 structures with rights (57 have diversion history on file). A flag is a lead for expert review — augmentation plans, exchanges, and free-river conditions can make over-decree diversions lawful and are deliberately not modeled.
- HILLS DITCH (4800512) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 29.2 cfs (max 31.8) exceeds total decreed absolute 11.0 cfs across 3868 recorded day(s).
- WRIGHT DITCH 2 (4800508) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 24.6 cfs (max 29.1) exceeds total decreed absolute 15.0 cfs across 6514 recorded day(s).
- PARKER DITCH (4800506) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 23.6 cfs (max 37.2) exceeds total decreed absolute 14.1 cfs across 5540 recorded day(s).
- MANSFIELD DITCH (4800518) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 22.7 cfs (max 35.5) exceeds total decreed absolute 15.6 cfs across 6726 recorded day(s).
- GRACE CREEK DITCH (4800565) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 20.3 cfs (max 22.6) exceeds total decreed absolute 19.4 cfs across 9800 recorded day(s).
- HANCE DITCH (4800566) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 19.9 cfs (max 23.4) exceeds total decreed absolute 19.4 cfs across 2046 recorded day(s).
- LAMB DITCH (4800542) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 19.9 cfs (max 24.3) exceeds total decreed absolute 18.9 cfs across 8522 recorded day(s).
- MARTIN DITCH 1 (4800509) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 19.4 cfs (max 44.2) exceeds total decreed absolute 15.5 cfs across 6268 recorded day(s).
- UPPER HILLS DITCH (4800511) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 18.1 cfs (max 23.8) exceeds total decreed absolute 10.0 cfs across 4892 recorded day(s).
- SMITHS BROWN DITCH (4800513) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 17.3 cfs (max 27.3) exceeds total decreed absolute 16.6 cfs across 5080 recorded day(s).
Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)
| Structure | Senior priority date | Rights | Decreed abs (cfs) | Decreed abs (AF) | Conditional? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LARAMIE RIVER TUNNEL SYS (4800576) DWR↗ | 1902-08-25 | 1 | 300.0 | 0 | — |
| LARAMIE RIVER DITCH (4800577) DWR↗ | 1891-08-07 | 1 | 300.0 | 0 | — |
| SAND CREEK DITCH SYSTEM (4800572) DWR↗ | 1899-06-15 | 1 | 288.0 | 0 | — |
| RAWAH LOWER SUPPLY DITCH (4800500) DWR↗ | 1902-08-25 | 1 | 275.0 | 0 | — |
| RAWAH DITCH LAR R SYS (4800582) DWR↗ | 1902-08-25 | 1 | 225.0 | 0 | — |
| BOB CREEK DITCH DIVR (4800573) DWR↗ | 1897-09-24 | 1 | 60.0 | 0 | — |
| MCINTYRE DITCH LAR R SYS (4800581) DWR↗ | 1902-08-25 | 1 | 40.0 | 0 | — |
| TIMOTHY DITCH (4800507) DWR↗ | 1904-07-05 | 1 | 34.4 | 0 | — |
| YELTON DITCH (4800514) DWR↗ | 1882-07-01 | 1 | 30.1 | 0 | — |
| JIMMY CREEK DITCH (4800553) DWR↗ | 1884-06-01 | 3 | 29.9 | 0 | — |
| MANSFIELD DITCH 3 (4800580) DWR↗ | 1904-09-01 | 1 | 29.4 | 0 | — |
| LONE TREE DITCH (4800535) DWR↗ | 1894-10-24 | 1 | 25.0 | 0 | — |
| MANSFIELD DITCH 2 (4800519) DWR↗ | 1880-06-01 | 2 | 21.7 | 0 | — |
| MARTIN DITCH 2 (4800510) DWR↗ | 1887-04-30 | 2 | 20.5 | 0 | — |
| DAVY DITCH (4800531) DWR↗ | 1900-09-15 | 1 | 20.0 | 0 | — |
Recent inventory & legal-document changes
- 2026-10-10 — call set: SOUTH FLAT DITCH (39707)
- 2026-10-10 — call set: STERLING IRR CO DITCH 1 (39706)
- 2026-10-10 — call released: 39612
- 2026-10-09 — call released: 39680
- 2026-10-09 — call set: SOUTH PLATTE RIVER AT WATERTON (39697)
- 2026-10-09 — call set: CHATFIELD RESERVOIR (39698)
- 2026-10-09 — call released: 39678
- 2026-10-08 — call set: TRUE WEBSTER DITCH (39693)
Water-court filings this month (division-wide)
24 applications in the 2026-08 resume for this basin's division — new rights, changes, augmentation plans — from the water clerk's statutory monthly notice (C.R.S. 37-92-302), the earliest public signal of a new claim. Filings are division-wide, not district-filtered: check the county column. Full resume PDF at the Judicial Branch →
Anyone affected may file a statement of opposition until 2026-10-31 (16 days left). C.R.S. 37-92-302(3): due by the last day of the second month following the filing month — computed, not legal advice; confirm with the water clerk.
All 24 filings, with excerpts
| Case | What it asks | County | Excerpt |
|---|---|---|---|
2026CW3039
|
— | — | CASE NO. 20 26CW3039; STATE ENGINEER AND WATER DIV 2 ENGINEER vs. ANDREW STOREY – Verified Complaint for Injunctive Relief, Penalties, and Costs. This case is being listed in the resume to account for the case number in consecutive order. ---------------------… |
2026CW3040
|
plan for augmentation, new underground right | — | CASE NO. 2026CW3040 , Water Division 2 and CASE NO. 2026CW3135, Water Division 1; JANICE L DUNCAN, 6440 Highline Place, Colorado Springs, CO, 80908 (Please address all pleadings and inquiries regarding this matter to Applicant’s attorney: Philip E. Lopez, Eric… |
2026CW3088
|
plan for augmentation | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3088 NORTH RANCH, LLC, c/o Robert L. Myers, 944 Cheyenne Blvd., Colorado Springs, CO 80905; Please direct all correspondence concerning the application to: Ryan W. Farr, Sedona E. Chavez, Monson, Cummins, Shohet & Farr, LLC, 13511 Northgate E… |
2026CW3089
|
— | — | CASE NUMBER 20 26CW3089 ROBERSON LIVING TRUST, c/o Tamara Roberson -George, Rex Roberson, Kevin Roberson, Co-Trustees, 18235 Black Forest Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80908; Please direct all correspondence concerning this application to: David M. Shohet, and Se… |
2026CW3119
|
change of water right, plan for augmentation, new storage right | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3119 SHARON AND MARK WEATHERFORD, 12328 S. State Hwy 83, Franktown, CO 80116. (Forward all pleadings and correspondence to Chris D. Cummins and Sedona E. Chavez, Monson, Cummins, Shohet & Farr, LLC, 13511 Northgate Estates Dr., Ste. 250, Colo… |
2026CW3120
4404471 |
reasonable diligence | THE CITY AND | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3120 THE CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER, ACTING BY AND THROUGH ITS BOARD OF WATER COMMISSIONERS (“Denver Water” or “Applicant”), 1600 West 12th Avenue, Denver, Colorado 80204. Jessica R. Brody, General Counsel, Daniel J. Arnold, James M. Wittler, … |
2026CW3121
|
— | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3121 (2018CW3222)… |
2026CW3122
|
plan for augmentation, new underground right | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3122 DOUBLE S CONSTRUCTION & DESIGN LLC, ATTN: Scott Berry, 42631 Sager Lane, Parker, CO, 80138. APPLICATION FOR UNDERGROUND WATER RIGHTS FROM NONTRIBUTARY AND NOT-NONTRIBUTARY SOURCES AND APPROVAL OF PLAN FOR AUGMENTATION, IN THE NONTRIBUTAR… |
2026CW3123
|
reasonable diligence | THE CITY AND | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3123 THE CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER, ACTING BY AND THROUGH ITS BOARD OF WATER COMMISSIONERS (“Denver Water” or “Applicant”), 1600 West 12th Avenue, Denver, Colorado 80204. Jessica R. Brody, General Counsel, Daniel J. Arnold, James M. Wittler, … |
2026CW3124
|
reasonable diligence, make absolute, new underground right | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3124 WESTERN EQUIPMENT AND TRUCK, INC. , 2055 1 st Ave., Greeley, CO 80631, 970 -353-6682. P. Andrew Jones, Law Office of P. Andrew Jones, 1213 Founders Circle, Windsor, CO 80550, 970 -297-0570, ajones@pandrewjones.com. APPLICATION TO MAKE CO… |
2026CW3125
0600538 0600565 0600576 |
reasonable diligence | EASONABLE DILIGENCE IN BOULDER | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3125 (90CW108) (99CW125) (12CW72) (20CW3017) APPLICATION FOR FINDING OF REASONABLE DILIGENCE IN BOULDER COUNTY . 1. Name, Mailing Address, Phone Number, and E -mail Address of Applicant . CITY OF LAFAYETTE , c/o Cari Bischoff, Water Resources… |
2026CW3126
0815262 0815263 0815264 |
reasonable diligence, make absolute | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3126 MARY GUENZEL CHARITABLE TRUST, P.O. Box 9, Woodland Park, Colorado 80866; Please direct all correspondence concerning this application to: Ryan W. Farr, Monson, Cummins, Shohet & Farr, LLC, 13511 Northgate Estates Drive, Suite 250, Color… |
2026CW3127
|
new underground right | UPPER LARAMIE AQUIFER IN WELD | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3127 THE CITY OF GREELEY, ACTING BY AND THROUGH ITS WATER AND SEWER BOARD, AND THE COLORADO STATE BOARD OF LAND COMMISSIONERS. APPLICATION FOR NONTRIBUTARY UNDERGROUND WATER RIGHTS IN THE UPPER LARAMIE AQUIFER IN WELD COUNTY. I. Name, mailing… |
2026CW3128
|
reasonable diligence, make absolute | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3128 Applicant. CHRIS DINSDALE, P.O. Box 1807, Sterling, CO 80751, 970-522-9052 with all correspondence connected herewith being sent to Applicant’s Counsel, David P. Jones, Lawrence Custer Grasmick Jones & Donovan, LLP., 5245 Ronald Regan Bl… |
2026CW3129
|
plan for augmentation, new underground right | PLAN FOR AUGMENTATION IN ELBERT | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3129 VANCE ROBERT ANDRUS & TONI COLLEEN ANDRUS , 6414 Sherman Peak, Castle Rock, Colorado 80108. APPLICATION FOR UNDERGROUND WATER RIGHTS FROM NONTRIBUTARY AND NOT-NONTRIBUTARY SOURCES AND APPROVAL OF PLAN FOR AUGMENTATION IN ELBERT COUNTY . … |
2026CW3130
|
— | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW 3130 THE CITY OF GREELEY, ACTING BY AND THROUGH ITS WATER AND SEWER BOARD c/o Leah Hubbard, Deputy Director of Water Resources, 1001 – 11th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Greeley, Colorado 80631, leah.hubbard@greeleygov.com, (970) 350-9811. Please send … |
2026CW3131
|
reasonable diligence | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3131 CITY OF LOVELAND , Colorado (“Loveland”), c/o Noah Cecil, Assistant City Attorney, 500 East Third Street, #330, Loveland, Colorado 80537, Telephone: (970) 962 - 2434. APPLICATION FOR FINDING OF REASONABLE DILIGENCE IN LARIMER AND WELD CO… |
2026CW3132
|
— | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3132 Applicants. THE CENTRAL COLORADO WATER CONSERVANCY DISTRICT AND THE GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT SUBDISTRICT OF THE CENTRAL COLORADO WATER CONSERVANCY DISTRICT , 3209 West 28 th Street, Greeley, Colorado, 80634, 970-330-4540 with all future co… |
2026CW3133
|
reasonable diligence | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3133 CHELEY LAND, LLC AND CHELEY COLORADO CAMPS, LLC (f.k.a. Cheley Colorado Camps, Inc.) , 601 Steele Street, P.O. Box 6525, Denver, CO 80206. c/o Karen L. Henderson, Bushong & Holleman PC, 1966 13th Street, Suite 270, Boulder, CO 80302; (30… |
2026CW3139
|
change of water right | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3139 ALBERT WENDELL NELSON REVOCABLE TRUST c/o Wendell Nelson, Trustee 5537 N. County Road 9 Fort Collins, CO 80524 303 -921-4750 Sally Jean Nelson Revocable Trust c/o Wendell Nelson, Trustee 5537 N. County Road 9 Fort Collins, CO 80524 303 -… |
2026CW3140
|
plan for augmentation | PLAN FOR AUGMENTATION IN ELBERT | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3140 DAVID JOE KRAXNER III, 754 Highway 86, Elizabeth, CO, 80107. Philip E. Lopez, Eric K. Trout, Fairfield and Woods, P.C., 1801 California St, Suite 2600, Denver, CO, 80202. APPLICATION FOR A PLAN FOR AUGMENTATION IN ELBERT COUNTY. Subject … |
2026CW3141
|
plan for augmentation | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3141 KELTY COLORADO FAMILY LLLP, C/o Bruff Shea, P.O. Box 21, Franktown, Colorado 80166. Please direct all pleadings and correspondence to Applicants counsel: Michael A. Kopp, Trout Raley PC, 1120 Lincoln St., Suite 1600, Denver, CO 80203, (3… |
2026CW3142
|
new underground right | — | CASE NUMBER 2026CW3142 1. Name, address, and telephone number of Applicant and Landowner: 1.1. Applicant and Landowner: CAP LAND LLC, a Colorado limited liability company 47 (“CAP Land”) c/o Lena Vander Laan P.O. Box 105 Henderson, CO 80640 Please direct all c… |
2026CW9
|
reasonable diligence, make absolute | LARIMER | CASE NUMBER 2026CW9 SPRING44 DISTILLING, INC. (“Spring44”), 505 West 66th Street, Loveland, Colorado 80538, Telephone: (970) 445 -7109. APPLICATION FOR FINDINGS OF REASONABLE DILIGENCE AND CLAIM TO MAKE CERTAIN AMOUNTS ABSOLUTE IN LARIMER COUNTY. 2. Lindauer S… |
Water quality
The water itself, in this district
Four registers, each on its own schedule: what USGS sensors read right now, where samples have been taken, which stretches the state lists as impaired, and how the tap water of the systems here stands with EPA. None is a DWR record; each links its own page.
Right now
Source Provisional telemetry · fetched 2026-10-15 · verify at USGS current conditions ↗
No USGS continuous water-quality sensor reports from inside this district. Statewide sensors →
Where water has been sampled
Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-08 · verify at Water Quality Portal ↗
The portal lists 1,465 sampling stations in this district's watersheds (Upper Laramie 10180010; Cache La Poudre 10190007, 9% of the district), of which 93 reported a sample in the last 5 years on the state and tribal side (USGS activity is in the station count, not in that figure). Most active: Colorado Dept. of Public Health & Environment-WQCD (51), Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed (Volunteer) (30), Colorado River Watch (10). Most-sampled groups: Nutrient, Inorganics, Major, Metals, Physical, Inorganics, Major, Non-metals. Every station as a file ↗
Results themselves are not fetched here; USGS samples added after March 2024 may not be in the portal's legacy profiles yet.
Drinking water
Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-07 · verify at EPA SDWIS ↗
No community water system's service area or address falls in this district in EPA's file. All providers →
Impaired waters
Source Register of another agency · verify at EPA ATTAINS ↗
The state's 303(d) impaired-waters list has not been joined to this basin's own watershed boundary yet, so nothing is shown rather than a guess; the basins with a join carry the full list here. Why the join is geometry, not a name match.
Call cascade
If a call were placed at a given seniority, which structures in this basin would be out of priority, and how much of their decreed rate would be curtailed? Computed from this basin's cached decrees.
What this does and doesn't model. Seniority arithmetic only: every right junior to the call is treated as curtailed. It does not model reach applicability — structures downstream of the calling point are not administered by it — and it applies no futile-call judgment. Read it as “who is junior to this date, and by how much,” not as a prediction of what the Division Engineer would actually order.
Pick a calling right
Real decrees from this basin, ordered by administration number — that is, by actual seniority. The years will look out of order, and that is correct: an administration number encodes the adjudication date as well as the appropriation date, so a right appropriated in 1970 can be administered ahead of one from 1950. A senior call curtails almost everything; a junior one curtails almost nothing.
Or enter an administration number directly
DWR administration numbers encode appropriation and adjudication dates; lower is more senior.
This week's diagnostic
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System status
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Active river calls
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Hydrographs vs. historical envelope
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Anomaly flags
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Snowpack — 2 SNOTEL sites report here. Full snow & runoff picture — charts, forecast history and how the forecasts have verified →
Sites, exceedance bands and sources
| SNOTEL site | Elev (ft) | SWE (in) | Median (in) | % of median | Typical peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joe Wright | 10140 | 0.2 | 0.4 | — | May 5 (24.0 in) |
| Roach | 9710 | 0.0 | 0.1 | — | April 25 (17.5 in) |
Snow-water equivalent and medians (1991–2020) from NRCS SNOTEL; seasonal volume forecasts from the NRCS National Water and Climate Center. Sites and forecast points are assigned to the district whose boundary contains them — snowpack that feeds this district can also sit in a neighboring headwater district. Toggle the Snow chip on the map above to see the sites.
Topology cross-check: 0 parent disagreements, 10 sizable streams not on this network (vs DWR's route framework — under review)
This flow network was built mechanically; DWR's Source Water Route Framework disagrees with it in the places below. Each row is a question a human reviewer has not yet answered — not an error verdict. Checked 8 streams, 8 agree. Know this water? Tell us →
Sizable streams DWR maps here that this network does not carry:
Stuck Creek (12 mi) · Nunn Creek (11 mi) · Jimmy Creek (10 mi) · La Garde Creek (9 mi) · Stub Creek (7 mi) · Link Creek (6 mi) · Porter Creek (5 mi) · Drink Creek (4 mi)