Rifle/Elk/Parachute Creeks

Division 5 · Water District 39 · As of 2026-09-30 05:33 MDT · 5 weeks ago

Who may take water from the Rifle/Elk/Parachute Creeks, 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.

Live · machine-built

Rifle/Elk/Parachute Creeks on the ground — the ditches, wells, reservoirs and gages of Water District 39 · 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.

65th percentile for the week, week of 2026-10-12

1 call the record places on it, 10 unsettled

The Rifle Creek is near normal for mid October -- the 65th percentile for the week. 1 call stands against it right now; the most senior right calling dates to 1888. DWR's statements do not settle whether 10 more calls reach it.

Schematic

Historical

Reconstruct conditions as of

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 2026-09-29 (the newest reading on file), flows at the 7 ranked gages are running at a median 72% of their own long-term norm for this window — 5 below a typical year, 2 at or above. Driest relative to its record: GRASS VALLEY CANAL NEAR RIFLE FALLS, CO, ranking 2nd lowest of 35 years.

How this comparison is made

Each gage's mean flow over the 3 days either side of 2026-09-29, 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 2026-11-01 19:24 from 17 gage(s) with cached period-of-record data. The series is each gage's annual mean flow in cfs (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 17 gages with enough record, 2 are trending down and 0 up, and 1 carries a detected shift. The clearest is Grass Valley Canal near Rifle Falls, its annual mean flow changing -2.94 cfs per decade (-13.6% of its median annual flow) over 26 years (p<0.0001). The other 15 show no clear signal either way.

Gage	Trend	Change / decade cfs · % of median annual flow	Significance	Years	Changepoint
▸ Grass Valley Canal near Rifle Falls GRSVALCO	↓ decreasing	-2.94 cfs -13.6%	p<0.001	26	~2012
▸ Rifle Creek below Rifle Gap Reservoir RIFRGRCO	↓ decreasing	-2.03 cfs -8.7%	p=0.041	35	—

15 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. 8 gage(s) and 85 structure(s) report in 2026, but structure reporting only reached half its modern level around ~1950. 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)
1920s	1	0
1940s	1	28
1950s	2	122
1960s	0	113
1970s	2	120
1980s	2	161
1990s	5	162
2000s	4	94
2010s	4	93
2020s	7	86

Mass-balance (network closure) trend

Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 7% of 2395 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 (1955–2026)

Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to 1955 (170 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.

Groundwater now has its own tab: 35 monitored well(s), water-table trends, stream corridors, and the advisory depletion screen.

Reservoirs now has its own tab: 73 reservoir(s), end-of-year storage back to 1965, click-to-chart histories.

Cross-gage pattern fingerprint

Over the 24-year window with full coverage (2003–2026), the dominant shared pattern across 3 gage(s) explains 61% of year-to-year variance (almost certainly a basin-wide climate/snowpack driver).

All gages in this window move with the shared pattern -- no localized outlier.

Structures most implicated by reconciliation (as of 2026-09-29)

Which structures' data absorbed the most correction when the current mass-balance snapshot was reconciled -- see the Historical tab for the full picture on any date.

AVALANCHE CANAL (diversion): -0.4 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
IRON MOUNTAIN SPRING NO. 2B (return): -0.4 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
IRON MOUNTAIN SPRING NO. 2A (return): -0.4 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
EAST GAMBA SPRING AND PL (return): -0.4 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
IRON MOUNTAIN PUMP (diversion): -0.4 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
WEST GAMBA SPRING AND PL (return): -0.4 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
IRON MOUNTAIN SPRING (return): -0.4 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
BENZEL ALT PT NO 1 (diversion): -0.4 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
BURGIN SPRINGS PIPELINE (return): -0.4 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
INGLEHART SPRING NO 6 (return): -0.4 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)

Data provenance & quality

Where these numbers come from and how far they can be trusted. Grade D (2/6 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 33 day(s) old (target 7)
diversion record	stale	newest diversion record is 732 day(s) old (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears)
structure coverage	sparse	7% of schematic structures have data

Independent check: PASS — 100.0000% agreement across 182,862 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 — 99.89% day-level agreement with USGS's own published records for the same gages, across 13 co-listed station(s) and 44,838 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.

17 gage(s) / 90,493 daily values (1921-04-01–2026-09-29); 347 structure(s) with diversion records; 1758 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

Source DWR administrative record · verify at DWR groundwater wells ↗ Source DWR administrative record · verify at DWR well permits ↗

97 water-level measurements across 35 monitored well(s) — 21 alluvial, 1 bedrock — plus 11 administered well(s) reporting metered pumping.

What is being counted

Observation wells and pumping wells are different populations and are never conflated: water levels come from monitored observation wells, and metered pumping comes from administered wells reporting through diversion records. Click any well to chart its own record.

Well map

3D aquifer x-ray

Every aquifer unit as its own head surface, animated through time.

How the surfaces are built, and what they are not

Alluvial water table on top, Denver Basin members (Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe, Laramie–Fox Hills) stacked beneath where measured, interpolated from measured water levels. Units are never mixed; a surface exists only inside its own unit's well coverage, with no extrapolation; thin epochs are suppressed and say why. Vertical scale is exaggerated for readability and z is head elevation in feet. These are measured heads, not a calibrated groundwater model.

Water-table trends

Of 0 well(s) with enough record for a trend test: 0 declining, 0 rising.

Wells labeled by administrative world before anything else is said about them: tributary alluvium participates in the priority system; designated-basin and Denver Basin bedrock aquifers are governed differently and are excluded from stream-connection reasoning. Read bedrock declines differently too: deep bedrock aquifers recharge negligibly on human timescales, so a falling bedrock level is storage mining — effectively permanent — not a drought response that a wet year undoes. All screens advisory.

4,146 well permits on file — not decreed rights

55% household or domestic use

90 ft median depth, 2,630 wells reporting

47% are constructed wells; 20% 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

2,382 located water-supply permits with an issue date, 1908 to 2026; half of them had been issued by 1997, and the busiest year was 1981 with 101. The district’s 1,156 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 4,146 above counts every permit on file here; 608 of them have no usable location or no issue date and are not in this chart.

Show the monitoring holes too (1,156; the scale changes)

water-supply permits issued that year monitoring holes, when shown 1 issued before 1950 is in the table, not the bars

The counts by year, as a table

Located well permits with an issue date in this district, by issue year. Monitoring holes are the two DWR monitoring categories; water-supply is everything else.
Year	Issued	Monitoring holes	Water-supply	Issued through that year
1908	1	0	1	1
1958	5	0	5	6
1959	4	0	4	10
1960	7	0	7	17
1961	4	0	4	21
1962	11	0	11	32
1963	5	0	5	37
1964	10	0	10	47
1965	7	0	7	54
1966	7	0	7	61
1967	5	0	5	66
1968	13	0	13	79
1969	8	0	8	87
1970	6	0	6	93
1971	19	0	19	112
1972	50	0	50	162
1973	28	0	28	190
1974	36	0	36	226
1975	20	0	20	246
1976	16	0	16	262
1977	33	0	33	295
1978	39	0	39	334
1979	43	0	43	377
1980	41	0	41	418
1981	120	19	101	538
1982	50	4	46	588
1983	52	0	52	640
1984	36	0	36	676
1985	67	34	33	743
1986	25	1	24	768
1987	33	9	24	801
1988	24	6	18	825
1989	29	2	27	854
1990	60	15	45	914
1991	46	13	33	960
1992	85	40	45	1,045
1993	83	14	69	1,128
1994	102	19	83	1,230
1995	92	34	58	1,322
1996	125	47	78	1,447
1997	119	49	70	1,566
1998	153	72	81	1,719
1999	103	40	63	1,822
2000	112	27	85	1,934
2001	104	18	86	2,038
2002	120	35	85	2,158
2003	66	11	55	2,224
2004	66	16	50	2,290
2005	37	5	32	2,327
2006	98	57	41	2,425
2007	63	18	45	2,488
2008	59	17	42	2,547
2009	43	17	26	2,590
2010	47	14	33	2,637
2011	68	46	22	2,705
2012	85	69	16	2,790
2013	47	23	24	2,837
2014	84	58	26	2,921
2015	43	30	13	2,964
2016	19	5	14	2,983
2017	43	13	30	3,026
2018	96	75	21	3,122
2019	52	30	22	3,174
2020	64	35	29	3,238
2021	47	13	34	3,285
2022	43	19	24	3,328
2023	48	28	20	3,376
2024	65	16	49	3,441
2025	62	28	34	3,503
2026	35	15	20	3,538

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

15 PLSS townships here where at least 5 water-supply permits naming the same aquifer filed a depth (1,804 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. 5 of these townships straddle a district line and are filed here because most of their permits are.

T5S R92W
441

T6S R93W
416 · 57% here

T6S R91W
268 · 52% here

T5S R90W
202 · 90% here

T5S R91W
176

T5S R93W
61

T4S R91W
47

T4S R92W
42

T6S R95W
42 · 70% here

T5S R96W
30

T5S R95W
21

T6S R96W
21

T4S R93W
17

T5S R89W
13

T4S R94W
7 · 75% here

unnamed other named 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

Water-supply permits by PLSS township and the aquifer named on them, where at least 5 filed a depth: percentiles of the depth drilled to and of the screen top and bottom (where at least 5 filed a screen), feet below ground as filed. The permit file’s view, not a geologic map.
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
T5S R92W 6th PM	99%	unnamed	435	65 / 141 / 260	35 / 70 / 160	60 / 140 / 250
T5S R92W 6th PM	99%	other named	5	174 / 195 / 200	42 / 140 / 161	161 / 195 / 200
T6S R93W 6th PM	57%	unnamed	414	36 / 110 / 316	24 / 70 / 180	41 / 110 / 259
T6S R91W 6th PM	52%	unnamed	265	40 / 103 / 240	25 / 75 / 142	40 / 103 / 231
T5S R90W 6th PM	90%	unnamed	198	41 / 84 / 225	29 / 60 / 174	43 / 85 / 225
T5S R91W 6th PM	98%	unnamed	175	32 / 100 / 219	22 / 50 / 130	37 / 110 / 214
T5S R93W 6th PM	100%	unnamed	61	47 / 130 / 250	39 / 78 / 156	49 / 122 / 200
T4S R91W 6th PM	100%	unnamed	47	35 / 74 / 161	23 / 50 / 86	44 / 70 / 107
T4S R92W 6th PM	100%	unnamed	41	10 / 83 / 460	27 / 73 / 384	54 / 91 / 465
T6S R95W 6th PM	70%	unnamed	42	40 / 87 / 178	26 / 60 / 110	50 / 85 / 185
T5S R96W 6th PM	100%	unnamed	29	50 / 500 / 787	22 / 30 / 39	48 / 50 / 105
T5S R95W 6th PM	95%	unnamed	21	145 / 617 / 700	58 / 427 / 552	138 / 514 / 606
T6S R96W 6th PM	100%	unnamed	21	20 / 80 / 130	24 / 50 / 78	47 / 78 / 118
T4S R93W 6th PM	100%	unnamed	15	17 / 81 / 160	15 / 53 / 108	25 / 80 / 155
T5S R89W 6th PM	96%	unnamed	13	62 / 140 / 215	40 / 62 / 150	67 / 105 / 182
T4S R94W 6th PM	75%	unnamed	7	7 / 20 / 232	—	—

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.

Line Corridor

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.

Reservoirs

Source DWR administrative record · verify at DWR structure records ↗

73 reservoir(s) with 3,268 storage measurement(s), 1965–2022. Basin storage as of 2021-10-31 (the record's own end — reservoir records publish ~annually): 2,936 AF across 2 reservoir(s).

Why storage matters to the flow network

Storage change is real water the mass balance must credit — a losing reach beside a filling reservoir isn't losing water, it's banking it.

Reservoir map — how full is each vessel?

What “full” is measured against

Bubble size is proportional to a reservoir's record-high storage. Fill is its last recorded storage as a share of its surveyed capacity (USACE National Inventory of Dams) where a confident NID match exists — the tooltip names the matched dam — and as a share of its own record high otherwise. A wrong capacity would be worse than an honest record high, so only confident joins upgrade.

A dashed teal ring marks reservoirs reporting live DWR telemetry: their fill reflects yesterday's storage, is drawn as a dotted tail on charts, and is treated as provisional until the next verified HydroBase snapshot supersedes it.

A dashed red ring marks a dam under an active storage restriction from DWR's Dam Safety branch — the State Engineer has limited how much it may legally store, so a low fill can be an order, not a drought. Hazard class and inspection condition come from the same record, joined only where the dam carries this reservoir's WDID or a confident NID match — a wrong dam's restriction would be worse than none shown.

Basin storage, end of each water year

End-of-water-year totals; per-year reservoir counts shown because reporting coverage varies -- a total is only comparable to years with similar counts.

Largest reservoirs on record

Click a row to chart its full storage history, or open its dossier for rights, documents and dam-safety facts.

Reservoir	Last recorded storage (AF)	As of	Full	Dam (DWR Dam Safety)
▸ HARVEY GAP RESERVOIR (3903510)	2,400	1971-10-01	—	—	dossier →
▸ RIFLE GAP RESERVOIR (3903508)	2,241	2021-10-31	—	—	dossier →
▸ GRASS VALLEY CANAL (3900563)	1,559	2009-10-01	—	—	dossier →
▸ MEADOW CREEK RESERVOIR (3903940)	984	2008-10-31	—	—	dossier →
▸ FRAVERT RESERVOIR (3903504)	719	1970-11-01	—	—	dossier →
▸ GRASS VALLEY RESERVOIR (3903505)	695	2021-10-31	—	—	dossier →
▸ PARK RESERVOIR (3903507)	215	2008-10-31	—	—	dossier →
▸ CHAMBERS POND NO 2 (3904000)	200	2004-10-31	—	—	dossier →

Drought

Source Our computation, no independent reference · computed here from the screened DWR record Source Independent agency measurement · fetched 2026-10-27 · verify at U.S. Drought Monitor ↗

Right now

This is the 24th-driest week 42 in 37 years of record at RIFLE CREEK BELOW RIFLE GAP RESERVOIR (as of 2026-10-12; this week’s flow sits at the 65th percentile for the date). On this week’s US Drought Monitor, Garfield County is 7% in D3 extreme drought (2026-10-27). The law agrees: the most senior active call leaves 87% of this district’s decreed flow rights junior to the calling right this week.

Every year since 1985, week by week

Each thin row is a year at RIFLE CREEK BELOW RIFLE GAP RESERVOIR; 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 42 weeks recorded so far, 2026’s weekly trace most resembles 2021 (mean gap 8.0 percentile points; next closest 2022 (13.9), 2004 (20.2)). 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 Garfield, Gunnison counties — 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.

The law’s own drought gauge

When water runs short, administration answers: calls reach further back in time, and more decreed rights go junior to the calling right. This is that response, weekly since 2008 — the share of this district’s decreed flow rights junior to the most senior active call. Watch it spike in the named droughts below, and linger after the river recovers.

Computed from DWR’s call record (214 calls touching this district) against the district’s rights index. Scoping is deliberately coarse — a call’s own district, or districts named in its comments — and this is administration’s RESPONSE, not a per-structure verdict (each dossier’s curtailment card does that, with stream miles). A deepening call can also reflect growing demand, not only shrinking supply.

This basin’s droughts, by its own record

Drought	Span	Weeks	Trough percentile	Flows recovered	Water table back
unnamed dry spell	2026-04-13 → 2026-10-12	26	11th (2026-09-21)	not yet	—
the 2020-22 drought	2022-07-11 → 2023-04-10	39	10th (2022-10-17)	29 weeks	—
the 2020-22 drought	2021-04-12 → 2022-03-07	47	13th (2021-09-27)	86 weeks	—
the 2020-22 drought	2020-09-07 → 2021-03-01	25	25th (2020-10-26)	139 weeks	—
the 2018 drought	2018-10-08 → 2019-10-28	55	15th (2019-05-13)	209 weeks	—
the 2002 drought	2004-07-05 → 2005-04-25	42	20th (2004-12-20)	62 weeks	—
unnamed dry spell	1995-02-27 → 1995-10-02	31	7th (1995-05-29)	0 weeks	—
unnamed dry spell	1992-01-27 → 1992-10-26	39	19th (1992-05-11)	13 weeks	—
unnamed dry spell	1991-01-28 → 1991-10-28	39	16th (1991-04-22)	65 weeks	—
unnamed dry spell	1990-01-29 → 1990-10-01	35	19th (1990-03-26)	121 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.

When this basin claimed its water

Every bar is a year’s new appropriations (357 rights across 41 years of shared record), colored by that year’s wetness from the barcode above. Here the correlation is +0.24 — this basin tended to claim water after wet years, when the supply had just shown itself. 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 ↗

12 systems touch this district (12 community systems reporting 35,434 people served, a figure that counts a wholesaler's customers twice); none carries an open health-based violation on EPA's record.

System	Serves	Source	Here
RIFLE CITY OF	9,489	Surface water	76% of its area
GLENWOOD SPRINGS CITY OF	9,428	Surface water	27% of its area
NEW CASTLE TOWN OF	5,024	Surface water	100% of its area
BATTLEMENT MESA MD	4,100	Surface water	25% of its area
SILT TOWN OF	3,536	Surface water	71% of its area
PARACHUTE TOWN OF	1,320	Surface water	100% of its area
APPLE TREE PARK	1,160	Groundwater	12% of its area
COTTONWOOD SPRINGS MHP	750	Surface water	100% of its area

and 4 more; the full directory filters by district.

Instream-flow rights held by the state

Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-11-01 · verify at CWCB instream flow program ↗

28 reaches over 157.3 miles, held by the Colorado Water Conservation Board so that water stays in the stream. Every reach, with its schedule and case →

Main Elk Creek, 20.6 mi: 6 (10/1 - 4/30), 10 (5/1 - 9/30) cfs (appropriated 1980, 80CW0311) · dossier
East Elk Creek, 12.8 mi: 6 (10/1 - 4/30), 10 (5/1 - 9/30) cfs (appropriated 1980, 80CW0294) · dossier
East Rifle Creek, 10.8 mi: 6 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1980, 80CW0317) · dossier
West Rifle Creek, 10.8 mi: 1 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1980, 80CW0320) · dossier
Middle Rifle Creek, 10.6 mi: 3 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1980, 80CW0319) · dossier
Deep Creek, 10.0 mi: 2 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1985, 85CW0266) · dossier

and 22 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 1882-05-10 to 2022-10-29. Of the 20 structures with a yield estimate, the median one’s senior right was in priority 69% of a median irrigation season and 0% in a dry one. 22 abandonment screens and 151 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: 2463 across 1758 structure(s); 335 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 1988–2025, administration on this district has been tightening: 3 of 3 measures (days under call, calls set, seniority 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 (38 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	365	184	1884-04-07
2015	365	256	1885-07-28
2016	366	237	1884-04-26
2017	365	330	1884-05-01
2018	365	290	1884-03-02
2019	365	165	1886-08-09
2020	366	221	1883-03-30
2021	365	218	1883-03-15
2022	365	201	1885-06-01
2023	365	120	1885-07-28
2024	366	164	1886-08-09
2025	365	232	1885-06-16

Why diversions stopped — call-based explanations

Sustained diversion stops matched to senior administrative calls.

DAVIE DITCH (3900547) DWR↗ stopped 2024-10-15 (16+ days) — call at GRAND VALLEY CANAL curtailing 52% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]
DAVIE DITCH (3900547) DWR↗ stopped 2024-08-27 (7+ days) — call at SHOSHONE POWER PLANT curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
DAVIE DITCH (3900547) DWR↗ stopped 2024-07-02 (7+ days) — call at EAST DIVIDE CREEK DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
CONNALLY DITCH (3900536) DWR↗ stopped 2024-06-30 (32+ days) — call at EAST DIVIDE CREEK DITCH curtailing 67% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]

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
WILLCOX CANAL (3900752) DWR↗	1901-09-01	67.8% / 0.0%	67.8% / 0.0%
GRASS VALLEY CANAL (3900563) DWR↗	1887-07-20	69.2% / 0.0%	5.6% / 0.0%
EAST RIFLE CR PL NO 2 (3900649) DWR↗	1953-03-12	5.4% / 0.0%	5.4% / 0.0%
LOWER CACTUS VALLEY DITCH (3900612) DWR↗	1887-03-23	69.4% / 0.0%	2.8% / 0.0%
WARE AND HINDS DITCH (3900687) DWR↗	1883-10-01	98.3% / 15.0%	6.3% / 0.0%
RIFLE CREEK CANON DITCH (3900645) DWR↗	1882-05-15	100.0% / 65.9%	6.3% / 0.0%
SILT PUMP CANAL (3900663) DWR↗	1956-11-21	5.4% / 0.0%	2.8% / 0.0%
DEWEESE DITCH (3900548) DWR↗	1897-11-15	33.9% / 0.0%	5.4% / 0.0%
WILLIAMS CANAL (3900825) DWR↗	1886-03-15	69.4% / 0.0%	2.8% / 0.0%
DOW PUMPING PLANT AND PIPELINE (3900709) DWR↗	1883-05-17	100.0% / 17.3%	4.9% / 0.0%
GRAND TUNNEL DITCH (3900574) DWR↗	1882-05-15	100.0% / 65.9%	2.8% / 0.0%
PIERSON AND HARRIS DITCH (3900638) DWR↗	1898-09-27	67.8% / 0.0%	2.8% / 0.0%

Abandonment radar (22 screens)

Absolute rights with 10+ years of no recorded diversions. Screens only — storage, alternate points, and plan operations can explain nonuse lawfully. And diversion REPORTING itself only reached its modern level ~1950 — idleness that begins before then may be unreported use, not nonuse (flagged † below).

HAZELTON SPRING NO 1 (3900820) DWR↗ (1997-03-10, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1953 — 34 years idle
VETTER DITCH (3900683) DWR↗ (1888-10-27, 0.3 cfs decreed): last active 1956 — 31 years idle
HUBBARD SPRING AND PL (3900720) DWR↗ (1942-10-03, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1957 — 30 years idle
MEADOW CREEK RES INLET D (3900722) DWR↗ (1954-09-13, 2.0 cfs decreed): last active 1957 — 30 years idle
MILE POND DITCH (3900725) DWR↗ (1902-11-07, 0.4 cfs decreed): last active 1957 — 30 years idle
DURAND SPRING & PIPELINE (3900711) DWR↗ (1913-05-15, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1964 — 23 years idle
DOW E MIDDLE FORK PL (3900707) DWR↗ (1883-05-17, 6.5 cfs decreed): last active 1967 — 20 years idle
DOW MIDDLE FK PIPELINE (3900708) DWR↗ (1883-05-17, 8.9 cfs decreed): last active 1968 — 19 years idle
THE PUMPING PIPELINE OF THE UNION OIL CO (3900728) DWR↗ (1883-02-15, 11.5 cfs decreed): last active 1968 — 19 years idle
ANDERSON STOCKWATER PL (3900502) DWR↗ (1930-05-01, 0.2 cfs decreed): last active 1971 — 16 years idle

Compliance screens (151 advisory flags)

Screened 257 of 1758 structures with rights (288 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.

LOWER CACTUS VALLEY DITCH (3900612) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 55.0 cfs (max 65.5) exceeds total decreed absolute 53.0 cfs across 47860 recorded day(s).
WARE AND HINDS DITCH (3900687) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 54.0 cfs (max 60.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 47.3 cfs across 44192 recorded day(s).
WILLIAMS CANAL (3900825) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 35.6 cfs (max 38.3) exceeds total decreed absolute 31.0 cfs across 26593 recorded day(s).
THOMPKINS DITCH (3900672) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 26.0 cfs (max 27.6) exceeds total decreed absolute 21.0 cfs across 29221 recorded day(s).
CLOUGH NO 1 DITCH (3900532) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 22.2 cfs (max 23.2) exceeds total decreed absolute 17.8 cfs across 10852 recorded day(s).
CORYELL JOINT STOCK IRRI (3900540) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 20.5 cfs (max 21.6) exceeds total decreed absolute 15.0 cfs across 9880 recorded day(s).
GRANLEE DITCH (3900562) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 16.1 cfs (max 20.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 12.7 cfs across 18524 recorded day(s).
WEST FORK DITCH (3900691) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 16.0 cfs (max 35.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 8.0 cfs across 10852 recorded day(s).
RIFLE FALLS HTC SPG COLL (3905398) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 16.0 cfs (max 16.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 11.7 cfs across 3574 recorded day(s).
NELSON DITCH (3900627) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 15.0 cfs (max 15.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 0.8 cfs across 2700 recorded day(s).

Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)

Structure	Senior priority date	Rights	Decreed abs (cfs)	Conditional?
WILLCOX CANAL (3900752) DWR↗	1901-09-01	1	200.0	—
GRASS VALLEY CANAL (3900563) DWR↗	1887-07-20	2	124.0	—
EAST RIFLE CR PL NO 2 (3900649) DWR↗	1953-03-12	1	90.0	—
LOWER CACTUS VALLEY DITCH (3900612) DWR↗	1887-03-23	3	53.0	—
WARE AND HINDS DITCH (3900687) DWR↗	1883-10-01	7	47.3	—
RIFLE CREEK CANON DITCH (3900645) DWR↗	1882-05-15	14	41.0	—
SILT PUMP CANAL (3900663) DWR↗	1956-11-21	2	36.1	yes
DEWEESE DITCH (3900548) DWR↗	1897-11-15	3	35.0	—
WILLIAMS CANAL (3900825) DWR↗	1886-03-15	20	31.0	yes
DOW PUMPING PLANT AND PIPELINE (3900709) DWR↗	1883-05-17	14	30.9	yes
GRAND TUNNEL DITCH (3900574) DWR↗	1882-05-15	11	28.5	—
PIERSON AND HARRIS DITCH (3900638) DWR↗	1898-09-27	3	28.1	—
LOW COST DITCH (3900610) DWR↗	1887-01-04	7	27.9	—
PARACHUTE DITCH (3900635) DWR↗	1886-02-01	6	27.2	—
DAVENPORT DITCH (3900546) DWR↗	1889-05-01	6	21.4	—

Recent inventory & legal-document changes

2026-11-01 — call set: GREEN MOUNTAIN RESERVOIR (39823)
2026-11-01 — call released: 39739
2026-10-29 — call set: DIVIDE CREEK HIGHLINE D (39816)
2026-10-29 — call released: 39296
2026-10-28 — call released: 39681
2026-10-28 — call released: 39624
2026-10-28 — call released: 36897
2026-10-28 — call released: 39053

Water-court filings this month (division-wide)

10 applications in the 2026-09 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 2026-11-30 (24 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 10 filings, with excerpts

Case	What it asks	County	Excerpt
`2026CW3048`	—	—	CASE NO. 2026CW3048; Previous Case Nos. 20CW3005, 13CW3044, 01CW68 and 84CW178 – BOARD OF WATER WORKS OF PUEBLO, COLORADO, Attention: Executive Director, 319 West Fourth Street, Pueblo, Colorado 81003 (Please address all pleadings and inquiries regarding this …
`26CW3086`	change of water right	GRAND	26CW3086 GRAND COUNTY -RECTOR FAMILY LIMITED LIABILITY LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, MIKE RECTOR, GENERAL PARTNER (5 Inverness Dr. East, Englewood, CO 80112; mhr@rimop.com; 303-570-5174), c/o Valissa Tsoucaris, Esq., Tsoucaris Law, LLC, 3000 Holly Street, Denver, CO 80…
`26CW3097`	reasonable diligence	PITKIN	26CW3097 PITKIN COUNTY, COLORADO; COLORADO RIVER OR ITS TRIBUTARIES. WOODY CREEK COMMUNE 1, LLC; WOODY CREEK COMMUNE 2, LLC; WOODY CREEK COMMUNE 3, LLC; and WOODY CREEK COMMUNE 4, LLC, Colorado limited liability companies; c/o Danielle L. Van Arsdale, Esq., Wo…
`26CW3098`	reasonable diligence	GRAND	26CW3098 GRAND COUNTY. Ritschard Springs Association, P.O. Box 1594, Kremmling, CO 80459, c/o Kaitlin Randall and Kent Whitmer, JVAM PLLC, PO Box 878, Glenwood Springs, CO 81602, (970) 922 -2122. APPLICATION FOR FINDING OF SEPTEMBER 2026 RESUME WATER DIVISION …
`26CW3099`	reasonable diligence	GARFIELD	26CW3099 GARFIELD COUNTY, COLORADO, A SPRING TRIBUTARY TO THE COLORADO RIVER . S Bar Lazy S Enterprises LLC, P.O. Box 809, Silt, Colorado 81652. Please direct all correspondence to Jeffrey J. Conklin and Danielle T. Skinner of Karp Neu Hanlon, P.C., P.O. Drawe…
`26CW3100`	reasonable diligence	PITKIN	26CW3100 PITKIN COUNTY – ROARING FORK RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. RUSSELL WIGHT c/o Paul L. Noto and John Sittler, Patrick, Miller & Noto, P.C., 229 Midland Ave., Basalt, CO 81621 (970) 920-1030. APPLICATION FOR FINDINGS OF REASONABLE DILIGENCE. First Claim: Wi…
`26CW3101`	reasonable diligence, make absolute	GARFIELD	26CW3101 GARFIELD COUNTY, CANYON CRK, COLORADO RIVER. App for Reasonable Diligence and To Make Absolute. Ross Jeffery c/o Sherry Caloia, PO Box 443, Glenwood Sprgs 81602. Name: Ross Hydro, decreed in 20CW002 on 10/11/2020. Desc: 1 or more pipelines in NW¼ NE¼ …
`26CW3102`	—	GRAND	26CW3102 GRAND COUNTY . Moose Ridge Association, c/o Robin Tieman, President, 4075 Nassau Pl., Boulder, CO 80301. Applicant is represented by Kaitlin Randall and Kent Whitmer, JVAM PLLC, PO Box 878, Glenwood Springs, CO 81602, (970) 922 - 2122. APPLICATION FOR…
`26CW3105`	reasonable diligence	PITKIN	26CW3105 PITKIN COUNTY, COLORADO. WATER RIGHT TRIBUTARY TO THE ROARING FORK RIVER. Application for Findings of Reasonable Diligence. Aspen Skiing Company, LLC, c/o Kylie J. Crandall, Esq., Mark E. Hamilton, Esq., HOLLAND & HART LLP, 600 E. Main St., Suite 104,…
`26CW3107`	reasonable diligence	EAGLE	26CW3107 EAGLE COUNTY, COLORADO, GROUNDWATER TRIBUTARY TO LAKE CREEK, TRIBUTARY TO THE EAGLE RIVER, TRIBUTARY TO THE COLORADO RIVER. WLC1003 LLC, 1003 Lake Creek Road, Edwards, Colorado 81632. Please direct all correspondence to Michael J. Sawyer and Erika 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 2026-11-04 · verify at USGS current conditions ↗

2 USGS sensors report temperature, conductance, dissolved oxygen or turbidity from inside this district; provisional readings, never merged into the verified record.

Site	Temp °C	Cond µS/cm	DO mg/L	Turb FNU	As of
COLORADO R ABV ROARING FORK R AT GLENWOOD SPGS, CO ↗	8.9	1570	10.5	10	2026-11-04 18:05
COLORADO R BLW SOUTH CANYON CR NR GLENWOOD SPGS CO ↗	8.4	1220	9.9	184	2026-11-04 18:05

Where water has been sampled

Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-08 · verify at Water Quality Portal ↗

The portal lists 2,357 sampling stations in this district's watershed (Colorado Headwaters-Plateau 14010005), of which 161 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 (79), USGS Colorado Water Science Center (40), Colorado River Watch (40). Most-sampled groups: Physical, Inorganics, Major, Metals, Nutrient, Organics, Pesticide. 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 ↗

12 community systems touch this district. None carries an open health-based violation on EPA's record. EPA sampled 4 of them for PFAS in 2023–25; none had PFOA or PFOS at or above the 2024 limit.

System	Serves	EPA record	PFAS (UCMR 5)	Lead, latest 90th pct
RIFLE CITY OF	9,489	11 of 12 quarters with a violation	none detected	0.0014 mg/L
GLENWOOD SPRINGS CITY OF	9,428	clean, last 12 quarters	none detected	0.001 mg/L
NEW CASTLE TOWN OF	5,024	clean, last 12 quarters	none detected	0.0 mg/L
BATTLEMENT MESA MD	4,100	5 of 12 quarters with a violation	none detected	0.0028 mg/L
SILT TOWN OF	3,536	2 of 12 quarters with a violation	not sampled	0.002 mg/L
PARACHUTE TOWN OF	1,320	1 of 12 quarters with a violation	not sampled	0.0024 mg/L
APPLE TREE PARK	1,160	clean, last 12 quarters	not sampled	0.0028 mg/L
COTTONWOOD SPRINGS MHP	750	3 of 12 quarters with a violation	not sampled	0.0006 mg/L
RIFLE CORRECTIONAL CENTER	287	11 of 12 quarters with a violation	not sampled	0.0077 mg/L
CANYON CREEK ESTATES	140	12 of 12 quarters with a violation	not sampled	0.0007 mg/L

and 2 more; the full directory filters by district.

EPA's record carries violations and lead/copper percentiles; nitrate and disinfection by-product results are not in it. UCMR 5 samples are monitoring, not compliance, and the 2024 PFOA/PFOS limits equal its reporting limit, so any detection of those two is at or above them.

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

Administration number

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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Topology cross-check: 9 parent disagreements, 8 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 20 streams, 11 agree. Know this water? Tell us →

Stream	This site routes it to	DWR routes it to
Middle Rifle Creek	the mainstem	West Rifle Creek
East Rifle Creek	the mainstem	Rifle Creek
Main Elk Creek	the mainstem	Elk Creek
West Rifle Creek	the mainstem	Rifle Creek
Government Creek	the mainstem	Rifle Creek
West Elk Creek	the mainstem	Elk Creek
Dry Rifle Creek	the mainstem	East Rifle Creek
East Elk Creek	the mainstem	Elk Creek

Sizable streams DWR maps here that this network does not carry:

Cottonwood Gulch (7 mi) · Skutter Draw (7 mi) · Allenwater Creek (5 mi) · Preti Gulch (5 mi) · Oasis Creek (4 mi) · Elk Creek (4 mi) · Smith Gulch (4 mi) · Sherard Creek (3 mi)

Something wrong on this page? Tell us →

Page assembled 02:07 MST · live figures refresh through the day.

Rifle/Elk/Parachute Creeks

Schematic

Historical

Evolution of the network

Trends

This year, in context

Gage flow trend & changepoints

How the measurement network itself changed

Mass-balance (network closure) trend

Reach gain/loss shifts (1955–2026)

Cross-gage pattern fingerprint

Structures most implicated by reconciliation (as of 2026-09-29)

Data provenance & quality

Groundwater

Well map

3D aquifer x-ray

Water-table trends

Permits issued here, by year

What drillers reached, township by township

Reservoirs

Reservoir map — how full is each vessel?

Basin storage, end of each water year

Largest reservoirs on record

Drought

Right now

Every year since 1985, week by week

This year against its analogs

The Drought Monitor’s view since 2000

The law’s own drought gauge

This basin’s droughts, by its own record

When this basin claimed its water

Legal

Who serves it, who protects it

Public water systems here

Instream-flow rights held by the state

Is the river getting harder to divert from?

Why diversions stopped — call-based explanations

Right yield — how often could these rights actually divert?

Abandonment radar (22 screens)

Compliance screens (151 advisory flags)

Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)

Recent inventory & legal-document changes

Water-court filings this month (division-wide)

Water quality

The water itself, in this district

Right now

Where water has been sampled

Drinking water

Impaired waters

Call cascade

Pick a calling right

This week's diagnostic

System status

Active river calls

Hydrographs vs. historical envelope

Anomaly flags

Keep track of Colorado’s water?