Hydrohistorian
Piney/Cottonwood Creeks on the ground — the ditches, wells, reservoirs and gages of Water District 52 · clicktap anything for its record
Browse this district’s ditches, gages, reservoirs, wells and springs as a list.
The Piney River is critically low for late June -- 1% of normal flow, its 1st-driest such week in 83 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.
Schematic
Historical
Evolution of the network
Trends
This year, in context
In the weeks around 2026-07-06 (the newest reading on file), flows at the 2 ranked gages are running at a median 96% of their own long-term norm for this window — 2 below a typical year, 0 at or above. Driest relative to its record: PINEY RIVER NEAR STATE BRIDGE, CO, ranking 1st lowest of 83 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 20:25 from 8 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.
None of the 8 gages with enough record shows a significant trend or a detected shift — which is itself the finding.
No gage shows a statistically significant trend or changepoint yet.
8 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. 3 gage(s) and 56 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) |
|---|---|---|
| 1940s | 2 | 0 |
| 1950s | 2 | 0 |
| 1960s | 5 | 0 |
| 1970s | 5 | 98 |
| 1980s | 6 | 116 |
| 1990s | 5 | 114 |
| 2000s | 3 | 98 |
| 2010s | 2 | 74 |
| 2020s | 3 | 27 |
Mass-balance (network closure) trend
Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 34% of 334 schematic-relevant structures. 3 year(s) clear the 30% coverage gate so far (1985–1987) -- 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 (–)
Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to (0 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: 5 monitored well(s), water-table trends, stream corridors, and the advisory depletion screen.
Reservoirs now has its own tab: 32 reservoir(s), end-of-year storage back to 1975, click-to-chart histories.
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 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 760 day(s) old (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears) |
| structure coverage | sparse | 34% of schematic structures have data |
Independent check: PASS — 100.0000% agreement across 101,495 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 — 99.70% day-level agreement with USGS's own published records for the same gages, across 8 co-listed station(s) and 98,931 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.
8 gage(s) / 98,868 daily values (1944-06-01–2026-07-06); 253 structure(s) with diversion records; 562 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
10 water-level measurements across 5 monitored well(s) — 4 alluvial, 0 bedrock — plus 1 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.
Reservoirs
32 reservoir(s) with 1,433 storage measurement(s), 1975–2024.
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) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ▸ RAGLAND RESERVOIR NO 2 (5203955) | 122 | 1990-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ MARMA LAKE (5203982) | 60 | 2013-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ JONES RESERVOIR (5203940) | 42 | 2013-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ ROCK GAP DAM (5203949) | 39 | 2013-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ OLSEN RESERVOIR NO 1 (5203959) | 35 | 2007-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ BOX CANYON RESERVOIR (5203935) | 29 | 1999-10-25 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ HURT RESERVOIR (5203939) | 26 | 2006-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ OXFORD RESERVOIR (5203946) | 25 | 2013-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
Drought
Right now
This is the 1st-driest week 27 in 83 years of record at PINEY RIVER NEAR STATE BRIDGE, CO (as of 2026-06-29; this week’s flow sits at the 1st percentile for the date). On this week’s US Drought Monitor, Grand County is 54% in D4 exceptional drought (2026-09-01). The law agrees: the most senior active call leaves 92% of this district’s decreed flow rights junior to the calling right this week.
Every year since 1944, week by week
Each thin row is a year at PINEY RIVER NEAR STATE BRIDGE, 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.
The Drought Monitor’s view since 2000
Mean share of area in each class across Eagle, Grand 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 2018 — 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 (10 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 | 2025-10-13 → 2026-07-06 | 38 | 17th (2026-06-29) | not yet |
| unnamed dry spell | 2024-12-09 → 2025-05-19 | 23 | 26th (2025-01-20) | not yet |
| the 2020-22 drought | 2020-10-26 → 2022-04-18 | 77 | 12th (2021-03-22) | 58 weeks |
| the 2018 drought | 2018-02-05 → 2019-06-17 | 71 | 17th (2018-11-12) | 4 weeks |
| the 2012-13 drought | 2013-02-18 → 2013-10-07 | 33 | 13th (2013-05-06) | 0 weeks |
| the 2002 drought | 2002-02-18 → 2003-02-03 | 50 | 21st (2002-10-21) | 23 weeks |
| unnamed dry spell | 1994-07-04 → 1995-07-10 | 53 | 23rd (1994-12-05) | 1 week |
| unnamed dry spell | 1989-10-09 → 1990-06-04 | 34 | 19th (1989-11-27) | 35 weeks |
| unnamed dry spell | 1988-10-10 → 1989-06-12 | 35 | 21st (1988-12-26) | 86 weeks |
| the 1981 drought | 1981-06-01 → 1981-11-30 | 26 | 25th (1981-08-03) | 22 weeks |
| the 1981 drought | 1980-01-07 → 1980-09-22 | 37 | 2nd (1980-04-07) | 84 weeks |
| unnamed dry spell | 1978-12-11 → 1979-08-20 | 36 | 10th (1979-03-26) | 0 weeks |
| the 1977 drought | 1977-01-10 → 1978-05-22 | 71 | 3rd (1977-11-07) | 2 weeks |
| the 1977 drought | 1976-02-02 → 1976-09-20 | 33 | 16th (1976-03-29) | 89 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 (452 rights across 83 years of shared record), colored by that year’s wetness from the barcode above. Here the correlation is +0.07 — 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
Decreed rights on this network run from 1883-05-01 to 2024-07-31. 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. 25 abandonment screens and 122 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: 814 across 562 structure(s); 136 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.
- ANGEHRN DITCH (5200505) DWR↗ stopped 2024-09-29 (21+ days) — call at GRAND VALLEY CANAL curtailing 63% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]
- BRUNER DITCH (5200525) DWR↗ stopped 2024-08-19 (46+ days) — call at HIGHLINE DITCH (BUZZARD) curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- ASHLOCK NO 2 DITCH HDG 1 (5200515) DWR↗ stopped 2024-07-24 (13+ days) — call at CAMP BIRD DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- ASHLOCK NO 2 DITCH HDG 2 (5200516) DWR↗ stopped 2024-07-18 (105+ days) — call at EAST DIVIDE CREEK DITCH [heuristic-strong]
- ASHLOCK NO 2 DITCH HDG 1 (5200515) DWR↗ stopped 2024-06-29 (12+ days) — call at EAST DIVIDE CREEK DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- DRY PARK DITCH (5200544) DWR↗ stopped 2023-10-07 (207+ days) — call at ATKINSON 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| BEST DITCH (5200662) DWR↗ | 1944-11-12 | 9.8% / 0.0% | 9.8% / 0.0% |
| WILMOT DITCH (5200658) DWR↗ | 1883-12-20 | 100.0% / 17.3% | 33.2% / 0.0% |
| SCHLEGAL DITCH (ALKALI) (5200632) DWR↗ | 1953-08-05 | 9.8% / 0.0% | 9.8% / 0.0% |
| SWITZER DITCH (5200648) DWR↗ | 1900-05-01 | 100.0% / 0.0% | 9.8% / 0.0% |
| HOG EYE DITCH (5200572) DWR↗ | 1889-06-15 | 100.0% / 0.0% | 9.8% / 0.0% |
| SEVEN PINES DITCH (5200633) DWR↗ | 1915-06-20 | 33.2% / 0.0% | 33.2% / 0.0% |
| GUTZLER DITCH (5200559) DWR↗ | 1887-05-01 | 100.0% / 0.0% | 33.2% / 0.0% |
| WHEELER DITCH (NEW) (5200675) DWR↗ | 1883-05-01 | 100.0% / 22.0% | 33.2% / 0.0% |
| HARTMAN COLO RIVER DITCH (5200565) DWR↗ | 1941-02-15 | 9.8% / 0.0% | 9.8% / 0.0% |
| MIN FLOW PINEY RIVER LOW (5202002) DWR↗ | 1986-01-16 | 9.8% / 0.0% | 9.8% / 0.0% |
| MCPHEE DITCH (NO 2) (5200599) DWR↗ | 1890-05-01 | 100.0% / 0.0% | 9.8% / 0.0% |
| OSAGE DITCH (5200607) DWR↗ | 1885-07-01 | 100.0% / 1.9% | 33.2% / 0.0% |
Abandonment radar (25 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 ~1974 — idleness that begins before then may be unreported use, not nonuse (flagged † below).
- CASTLE RESERVOIR (5203936) DWR↗ (1938-07-25, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1980 — 44 years idle
- A P R NO 6 DITCH (5200513) DWR↗ (1906-08-26, 2.0 cfs decreed): last active 1985 — 39 years idle
- SHEEPHORN NO 2 DITCH (5200636) DWR↗ (1916-06-05, 2.7 cfs decreed): last active 1985 — 39 years idle
- DAVIE NO 1 SPRING (5200710) DWR↗ (1915-12-31, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1985 — 39 years idle
- BAIR SPRING (5205021) DWR↗ (1930-06-30, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1985 — 39 years idle
- BIG SANDY SPRING (5205006) DWR↗ (1949-09-30, 0.2 cfs decreed): last active 1986 — 38 years idle
- BOYD SPRING (5205007) DWR↗ (1922-08-31, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1986 — 38 years idle
- RAILROAD WTR SUP AT RNGE (5200620) DWR↗ (1934-06-30, 0.4 cfs decreed): last active 1987 — 37 years idle
- ADESA SPRINGS (5200674) DWR↗ (1925-06-01, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1987 — 37 years idle
- BOLGER NO 1 SPRING (5200682) DWR↗ (1973-07-01, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1987 — 37 years idle
Compliance screens (122 advisory flags)
Screened 189 of 562 structures with rights (231 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.
- HOG EYE DITCH (5200572) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 14.0 cfs (max 14.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 12.6 cfs across 3825 recorded day(s).
- A P R NO 6 DITCH (5200513) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 13.9 cfs (max 13.9) exceeds total decreed absolute 2.0 cfs across 822 recorded day(s).
- DRY PARK DITCH (5200544) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 12.4 cfs (max 25.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 7.2 cfs across 12882 recorded day(s).
- OSAGE DITCH (5200607) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 10.0 cfs (max 10.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 8.1 cfs across 5152 recorded day(s).
- H B DICE DITCH (5200567) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 10.0 cfs (max 10.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 1.8 cfs across 4634 recorded day(s).
- CABIN DITCH (5200530) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 9.6 cfs (max 9.6) exceeds total decreed absolute 3.4 cfs across 5148 recorded day(s).
- JOHN L CONGER DITCH (5200523) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 9.0 cfs (max 9.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 3.5 cfs across 3848 recorded day(s).
- MATHER DITCH (5200590) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 8.0 cfs (max 8.2) exceeds total decreed absolute 8.0 cfs across 6998 recorded day(s).
- MCPHEE DITCH (5200598) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 8.0 cfs (max 8.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 6.0 cfs across 5792 recorded day(s).
- MILL DITCH (5200591) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 7.8 cfs (max 7.8) exceeds total decreed absolute 7.2 cfs across 6951 recorded day(s).
Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)
| Structure | Senior priority date | Rights | Decreed abs (cfs) | Decreed abs (AF) | Conditional? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BEST DITCH (5200662) DWR↗ | 1944-11-12 | 1 | 20.8 | 0 | — |
| WILMOT DITCH (5200658) DWR↗ | 1883-12-20 | 3 | 16.7 | 0 | — |
| SCHLEGAL DITCH (ALKALI) (5200632) DWR↗ | 1953-08-05 | 1 | 14.8 | 0 | — |
| SWITZER DITCH (5200648) DWR↗ | 1900-05-01 | 4 | 13.6 | 0 | — |
| HOG EYE DITCH (5200572) DWR↗ | 1889-06-15 | 5 | 12.6 | 0 | — |
| SEVEN PINES DITCH (5200633) DWR↗ | 1915-06-20 | 1 | 12.0 | 0 | — |
| GUTZLER DITCH (5200559) DWR↗ | 1887-05-01 | 3 | 11.8 | 0 | — |
| WHEELER DITCH (NEW) (5200675) DWR↗ | 1883-05-01 | 4 | 10.6 | 0 | — |
| HARTMAN COLO RIVER DITCH (5200565) DWR↗ | 1941-02-15 | 1 | 9.0 | 0 | — |
| MIN FLOW PINEY RIVER LOW (5202002) DWR↗ | 1986-01-16 | 1 | 9.0 | 0 | — |
| MCPHEE DITCH (NO 2) (5200599) DWR↗ | 1890-05-01 | 3 | 8.6 | 0 | — |
| OSAGE DITCH (5200607) DWR↗ | 1885-07-01 | 2 | 8.1 | 0 | — |
| TRAIL & CASTLE CR CONSOL (5200762) DWR↗ | 1889-08-29 | 3 | 8.0 | 0 | — |
| MATHER DITCH (5200590) DWR↗ | 1890-09-11 | 3 | 8.0 | 0 | — |
| CASTLE PEAK DITCH (5200534) DWR↗ | 1911-05-01 | 2 | 7.9 | 0 | — |
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… |
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.
Topology cross-check: 6 parent disagreements, 1 sizable stream 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 12 streams, 6 agree. Know this water? Tell us →
| Stream | This site routes it to | DWR routes it to |
|---|---|---|
| Spruce Creek | the mainstem | Colorado River |
| Ike Creek | the mainstem | Colorado River |
| Cottonwood Creek | the mainstem | Colorado River |
| Piney River | the mainstem | Colorado River |
| Goodson Creek | the mainstem | Colorado River |
| Hartman Gulch | the mainstem | Colorado River |
Sizable streams DWR maps here that this network does not carry:
Three Licks Creek (3 mi)