Rifle/Elk/Parachute Creeks

Division 5 · Water District 39

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Rifle/Elk/Parachute Creeks on the ground — the ditches, wells, reservoirs and gages of Water District 39 · clicktap anything for its record

Browse this district’s ditches, gages, reservoirs, wells and springs as a list.

5% of normal flow, week of 2026-06-29

45 calls active on it right now

The Rifle Creek is critically low for late June -- 5% of normal flow, its 2nd-driest such week in 37 years of record. 45 calls stand against it right now; the most senior right calling dates to 1881.

Full diagnostic snapshot pending — this district's weekly-style report (system status, active calls, hydrographs, anomaly flags) is produced by the nightly rotation and appears here after its first run. The tabs above are live now.

Reconstruct conditions as of

Evolution of the network

This year, in context

In the weeks around 2026-07-06 (the newest reading on file), flows at the 7 ranked gages are running at a median 48% of their own long-term norm for this window — 7 below a typical year, 0 at or above. Driest relative to its record: ELK CREEK AT NEW CASTLE, CO., ranking 1st lowest of 14 years.

How this comparison is made

Each gage's mean flow over the 3 days either side of 2026-07-06, 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 2026-08-30 20:18 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 2401 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 2026-07-06)

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.

RUEDI RESERVOIR (diversion): -0.3 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
AVALANCHE CANAL (diversion): -0.3 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
IRON MOUNTAIN SPRING NO. 2B (return): -0.3 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
IRON MOUNTAIN SPRING NO. 2A (return): -0.3 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
EAST GAMBA SPRING AND PL (return): -0.3 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
IRON MOUNTAIN PUMP (diversion): -0.3 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
WEST GAMBA SPRING AND PL (return): -0.3 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
IRON MOUNTAIN SPRING (return): -0.3 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
BENZEL ALT PT NO 1 (diversion): -0.3 cfs (2% of that reach's correction)
BURGIN SPRINGS PIPELINE (return): -0.3 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_20260707 (imported 2026-08-19) for history, plus the CDSS REST API for current conditions.

Check	State	What was measured
gage freshness	stale	newest gage reading is 55 day(s) old (target 7)
diversion record	stale	newest diversion record is 669 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 — 99.46% day-level agreement with USGS's own published records for the same gages, across 13 co-listed station(s) and 44,916 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) / 89,898 daily values (1921-04-01–2026-07-06); 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.

96 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.

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 →

Right now

This is the 2nd-driest week 27 in 37 years of record at RIFLE CREEK BELOW RIFLE GAP RESERVOIR (as of 2026-06-29; this week’s flow sits at the 5th percentile for the date). On this week’s US Drought Monitor, Garfield County is 34% in D4 exceptional drought (2026-09-01). The law agrees: the most senior active call leaves 94% 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.

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 (207 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	Recovery
unnamed dry spell	2025-09-01 → 2026-02-02	22	26th (2025-09-29)	not yet
the 2020-22 drought	2022-07-11 → 2023-04-10	39	9th (2022-10-17)	29 weeks
the 2020-22 drought	2021-04-12 → 2022-03-14	48	12th (2021-09-27)	85 weeks
the 2020-22 drought	2020-08-31 → 2021-03-08	27	24th (2020-10-26)	138 weeks
the 2018 drought	2018-10-01 → 2019-10-28	56	15th (2019-05-13)	209 weeks
the 2002 drought	2004-07-05 → 2005-04-25	42	19th (2004-12-20)	62 weeks
unnamed dry spell	1995-02-27 → 1995-10-02	31	7th (1995-05-29)	0 weeks
unnamed dry spell	1992-01-20 → 1992-11-02	41	19th (1992-05-11)	13 weeks
unnamed dry spell	1990-12-10 → 1991-11-11	48	16th (1991-04-22)	64 weeks
unnamed dry spell	1990-01-29 → 1990-10-01	35	19th (1990-03-26)	122 weeks

Detected mechanically: the 26-week smoothed percentile below the 30th for at least 20 weeks; recovered on regaining the 50th. 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.

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 100% 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]
EDWARD B JORDAN DITCH (3900556) DWR↗ stopped 2023-10-31 (179+ days) — call at MOCKING BIRD DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
BAXTER NO 2 DITCH (3900506) DWR↗ stopped 2023-10-30 (211+ days) — call at MOCKING BIRD DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
BENSON AND BARNETT DITCH (3900509) DWR↗ stopped 2023-10-30 (364+ days) — call at MOCKING BIRD DITCH curtailing 73% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]
BENSON PIERSON NELSON D (3900510) DWR↗ stopped 2023-10-30 (176+ days) — call at MOCKING BIRD DITCH curtailing 50% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]
BUSTER NO 1 DITCH (3900521) DWR↗ stopped 2023-10-30 (211+ days) — call at MOCKING BIRD DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
CLINETOP DITCH (3900531) DWR↗ stopped 2023-10-30 (153+ days) — call at MOCKING BIRD DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
CONNALLY DITCH (3900536) DWR↗ stopped 2023-10-30 (218+ days) — call at MOCKING BIRD DITCH curtailing 67% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]
COZZA NO 2 DITCH (3900541) DWR↗ stopped 2023-10-30 (178+ days) — call at MOCKING BIRD 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
WILLCOX CANAL (3900752) DWR↗	1901-09-01	100.0% / 0.0%	100.0% / 0.0%
GRASS VALLEY CANAL (3900563) DWR↗	1887-07-20	100.0% / 0.0%	9.8% / 0.0%
EAST RIFLE CR PL NO 2 (3900649) DWR↗	1953-03-12	9.8% / 0.0%	9.8% / 0.0%
LOWER CACTUS VALLEY DITCH (3900612) DWR↗	1887-03-23	100.0% / 0.0%	5.6% / 0.0%
WARE AND HINDS DITCH (3900687) DWR↗	1883-10-01	100.0% / 17.3%	9.8% / 0.0%
RIFLE CREEK CANON DITCH (3900645) DWR↗	1882-05-15	100.0% / 79.9%	9.8% / 0.0%
SILT PUMP CANAL (3900663) DWR↗	1956-11-21	9.8% / 0.0%	5.6% / 0.0%
DEWEESE DITCH (3900548) DWR↗	1897-11-15	34.6% / 0.0%	9.8% / 0.0%
WILLIAMS CANAL (3900825) DWR↗	1886-03-15	100.0% / 0.0%	5.6% / 0.0%
DOW PUMPING PLANT AND PIPELINE (3900709) DWR↗	1883-05-17	100.0% / 22.0%	9.8% / 0.0%
GRAND TUNNEL DITCH (3900574) DWR↗	1882-05-15	100.0% / 79.9%	5.6% / 0.0%
PIERSON AND HARRIS DITCH (3900638) DWR↗	1898-09-27	100.0% / 0.0%	5.6% / 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	—

No inventory or legal-document changes detected since the daily watch began.

Water-court filings this month (division-wide)

1 application 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 (56 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 1 filings, with excerpts

Case	What it asks	County	Excerpt
`26CW3012`	change of water right	RIO BLANCO	26CW3012 Rio Blanco County. Application For Change of Water Right and Approval of Augmentation Plan. Applicant: Three Crown Ranch, LLC, Balcomb & Green, P.C., P.O. Drawer 790, Glenwood Springs, CO 81602, (970) 945-6546; balcombgreen.com. First Claim for Change…

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.

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)

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