White River Basin

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 2026-10-01 (the newest reading on file), flows at the 8 ranked gages are running at a median 59% of their own long-term norm for this window — 8 below a typical year, 0 at or above. Driest relative to its record: CORRAL GULCH NEAR RANGELY, CO, ranking 1st lowest of 53 years.

Gage flow trend & changepoints

Of the 55 gages with enough record, 5 are trending down and 1 up, and 5 carry a detected shift. The clearest is Piceance Creek at White River, its annual mean flow changing -2.69 cfs per decade (-14.3% of its median annual flow) over 56 years (p=0.0028). The other 49 show no clear signal either way.

Drought history, cost, and the four-century context moved to the Drought tab.

⚠️ 1 gage flagged: their records may have quietly shifted against their neighbours, so treat their trends with caution.

49 other gage(s) show no significant trend or changepoint (not shown).

1 of those show a significant trend once extended backwards from a retired neighbour's record: White River below Meeker (122 yr, decreasing, suspect). Those are reconstructions, not measurements — each gage's page shows both.

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. 9 gage(s) and 490 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 †.

Mass-balance (network closure) trend

Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 16% of 2771 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 (1952–2026)

Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to 1952 (2381 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.

• NORTH FORK WHITE RIVER NEAR BUFORD, CO.: reach shifted from +367 cfs to -46 cfs summer mean (more losing, p=0.019, 17 yr) [sedimentary uplands: moderate groundwater connectivity -- gain/loss shifts can be real aquifer response; corroborate with nearby well records] [measurement-evolution caution: this shift co-moves with the growth of the gage/metering network (rho=-0.42) -- part of it may be unaccounted water becoming accounted, not hydrologic change]
• SOUTH FORK WHITE RIVER AT BUDGES RESORT, CO.: reach shifted from +179 cfs to -361 cfs summer mean (more losing, p=0.028, 21 yr) [mountain crystalline canyon: minimal groundwater storage -- large or shifting unaccounted losses here are more consistent with data/measurement issues or unmodeled plumbing than with aquifer exchange] [measurement-evolution caution: this shift co-moves with the growth of the gage/metering network (rho=-0.65) -- part of it may be unaccounted water becoming accounted, not hydrologic change]
• LOST CREEK NEAR BUFORD, CO.: reach shifted from -8 cfs to -382 cfs summer mean (more losing, p=0.011, 25 yr) [alluvial valley: real alluvial aquifer -- a decades-long shift toward losing is the classic signature of alluvial pumping and urbanization]
• PICEANCE CREEK AT WHITE RIVER, CO: reach shifted from -104 cfs to -621 cfs summer mean (more losing, p=0.000, 57 yr) [sedimentary uplands: moderate groundwater connectivity -- gain/loss shifts can be real aquifer response; corroborate with nearby well records] [measurement-evolution caution: this shift co-moves with the growth of the gage/metering network (rho=-0.54) -- part of it may be unaccounted water becoming accounted, not hydrologic change]

Groundwater now has its own tab: 438 monitored well(s), water-table trends, stream corridors, and the advisory depletion screen.

Reservoirs now has its own tab: 137 reservoir(s), end-of-year storage back to 1962, click-to-chart histories.

Cross-gage pattern fingerprint

Over the 65-year window with full coverage (1962–2026), the dominant shared pattern across 3 gage(s) explains 99% 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 2026-10-01)

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.

• LOWLAND DITCH (diversion): +3.8 cfs (7% of that reach's correction)
• ARMIT DITCH NO 1 (diversion): +3.8 cfs (7% of that reach's correction)
• ARMIT DITCH NO 2 (diversion): +3.8 cfs (7% of that reach's correction)
• LAYTON SPG 1 (return): +3.8 cfs (7% of that reach's correction)
• LAYTON SPG 2 (return): +3.8 cfs (7% of that reach's correction)
• STORY GULCH PARACHUTE PIPELINE (diversion): +3.8 cfs (7% of that reach's correction)
• KILLDUFF SPG NO 2 (return): +3.8 cfs (7% of that reach's correction)
• KILLDUFF SPG NO 1 (return): +3.8 cfs (7% of that reach's correction)
• KILLDUFF SPG NO 4 (return): +3.8 cfs (7% of that reach's correction)
• KILLDUFF SPG NO 3 (return): +3.8 cfs (7% of that reach's correction)

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

24,344 water-level measurements across 438 monitored well(s) — 302 alluvial, 34 bedrock — plus 31 administered well(s) reporting metered pumping.

Well map

3D aquifer x-ray

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

Water-table trends

Of 40 well(s) with enough record for a trend test: 15 declining, 5 rising.

Stream corridors — the surface connection

Where a reach's gain or loss has shifted, the wells within two miles of its anchoring gage and what their water table did over the same era.

NORTH FORK WHITE RIVER NEAR BUFORD, CO.: 8 alluvial well(s) nearby

LOST CREEK NEAR BUFORD, CO.: 5 alluvial well(s) nearby

PICEANCE CREEK AT WHITE RIVER, CO: 5 alluvial well(s) nearby

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.

Source DWR administrative record · verify at DWR structure records ↗

137 reservoir(s) with 10,886 storage measurement(s), 1962–2026. Basin storage as of 2025-10-31 (the record's own end — reservoir records publish ~annually): 7,985 AF across 51 reservoir(s).

Reservoir map — how full is each vessel?

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.

Source Independent agency measurement · fetched 2026-10-21 · verify at NRCS report generator ↗ Source Our computation, scored against a reference · NRCS forecast, graded here against the gage record

Snow-water equivalent, WY2027

NRCS SNOTEL, daily. Sites are assigned to the district whose boundary contains them — the snow that feeds this district can also sit in a neighboring headwater district.

Two ways a snow year goes wrong (1981–2026)

A bad snow year here comes in two flavors (both called snow droughtA winter that shorts the snowpack. It happens two ways: a dry one, where the snow never comes, and a warm one, where near-normal snow falls but melts off weeks early -- and the river feels them differently.), and the river feels them differently. In 9 of the last 46 winters the snow never came — the pack peaked below 80% of its median. In 1 more, the snow came but left early — a near-normal peak melted out two weeks or more ahead of its usual date, sending the water down before the season needed it.

The snow never came: 1990, 2002, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2026. The snow left early: 1981.

Computed by this site from 3 SNOTEL sites’ full daily records (NRCS AWDB, back to 1981). Each year is measured against each site’s own multi-decade median — not the 1991–2020 normal the chart above uses — so the 1980s grade against a fair baseline. Peak and melt-out need 85% of the season’s days on the record; thin years are dropped, not guessed. Derived from snow measurements alone — it cannot tell dry-from-warm causes apart, only what the snowpack did.

Runoff outlook — White R nr Meeker

NRCS's final issue (2026-06-01) calls it even odds that at least 20 kAF arrives over 06-01 to 07-31 — 16% of a normal season; almost certainly at least 8, probably not more than 49. Our own record at this gage shows 19 kAF actually delivered. New forecasts begin in January. How to read these numbers →

We test a record-based adjustment of the April benchmark at every graded point. Here it did not beat NRCS over 65 replayed seasons (15% typical miss unadjusted vs 18% adjusted), so none is shown — NRCS’s own forecast, unadjusted, is the best April benchmark available for this river. Why we test →

How good are these forecasts here? (1950–2025)

Grading every April issue against what the river then delivered, measured at this gage’s own record — 75 seasons: the median miss of the 50% forecast is 15%, with a low bias of 2%, and the observed volume landed inside the stated 10–90% band 75% of the time (a calibrated forecast would say 80%).

Computed by this site: NRCS's archived April issues (their period as issued each year) against the observed volume in DWR’s published record; years with under 90% daily coverage are dropped, not summed. A grade of the forecast, never of the forecasters — these are hard rivers. How this point ranks among every graded Colorado forecast point →

What April snow has meant for this river (1981–2026)

Across 46 measured years, the season’s water has closely followed the April snowpack: a year opening April with 80% of median snow has typically gone on to deliver about 70% of a normal season (a snow-to-runoff elasticityHow strongly one number moves with another. A snow-to-runoff elasticity of 1.5 means a 10% shortfall in April snowpack has typically become a 15% shortfall in the season's water. of 1.2). In warm, early-melt years the river delivered a median of 53% of a normal season, against 106% in typical years — the timing of the melt matters, not just its size.

Computed by this site: the district’s April 1 SWE (% of each SNOTEL site’s own-record median) against the observed April–July volume at this gage (% of its median season) — a fixed window every year, unlike the forecast grades above, which use each issue’s own period. The slope is fit so single wild years can’t steer it (Theil–Sen, log space); years missing 10% of their days are dropped.

Source Our computation, no independent reference · computed here from the screened DWR record Source Independent agency measurement · fetched 2026-10-13 · verify at U.S. Drought Monitor ↗

Right now

This is the 2nd-driest week 40 in 123 years of record at WHITE RIVER NEAR MEEKER, CO. (as of 2026-09-28; this week’s flow sits at the 2nd percentileRank against the record: a river at its 5th percentile is lower than it was in 95 of the past 100 years on this same date. for the date). On this week’s US Drought Monitor, Rio Blanco County is 13% in D3 extreme drought (2026-10-13). The law agrees: the most senior active call leaves 0% of this district’s decreed flow rights junior to the calling right this week.

Every year since 1901, week by week

Each thin row is a year at WHITE RIVER NEAR MEEKER, CO.; each cell is one week’s flow ranked against the same calendar week of every other year — warm means dry for the date, blue wet, so seasonality cancels and droughts appear as warm bands. Gaps are missing record, never a dry river. Click a year to reconstruct it on the Historical tab.

This year against its analogs

Over the 40 weeks recorded so far, 2026’s weekly trace most resembles 2021 (mean gap 8.6 percentile points; next closest 1977 (10.6), 2018 (13.5)). 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, Rio Blanco 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 2002 — 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 (226 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

Detected mechanically: the 26-week smoothed percentile below the 30th for at least 20 weeks; recovered on regaining the 50th. The water-table clock compares each monitoring well against its own pre-drought median (the 3 years before onset) and dates the year the median well got back — the aquifer remembers longest, and “still below” is a finding, not a gap. The knobs are stated because the episode list depends on them — a different reasonable choice merges or splits episodes at the edges. Names are attached where an episode overlaps a drought Colorado already talks about.

What drought has cost here

Since 1991, federal crop insurance has paid $12,617 in drought-caused claims across Garfield, Rio Blanco counties — 0.1% of all insured crop losses there. The worst year was 2021 ($5,470).

USDA crop-insurance indemnities where the recorded cause of loss is drought, summed over the counties this district's gages sit in. Counties overlap water districts imperfectly, and insured-crop claims are a floor on drought damage, not a total. Source: USDA RMA cause-of-loss files.

When this basin claimed its water

Every bar is a year’s new appropriations (3,455 rights across 124 years of shared record), colored by that year’s wetness from the barcode above. Here the correlation is +0.12 — 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.

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 ↗

4 systems touch this district (4 community systems reporting 5,368 people served, a figure that counts a wholesaler's customers twice); none carries an open health-based violation on EPA's record.

Instream-flow rights held by the state

Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-18 · verify at CWCB instream flow program ↗

52 reaches over 340.2 miles and 1 natural lake level, held by the Colorado Water Conservation Board so that water stays in the stream. Every reach, with its schedule and case →

• White River, 43.0 mi
• White River, 43.0 mi: 200 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1977, 77W3652C) · dossier
• Douglas Creek, 26.29 mi: 2.7 (03/16 - 06/15), 1.7 (06/16 - 06/30) cfs (appropriated 2018, 18CW3037) · dossier
• East Douglas Creek, 14.22 mi: 0.5 (5/1 - 10/15) cfs (appropriated 2015, 15CW3049) · dossier
• Middle Miller Creek, 11.8 mi: 2 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1980, 80CW0369) · dossier
• East Douglas Creek, 10.7 mi: 1.5 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1985, 85CW0258) · dossier

and 47 more on the district's instream-flow page.

What the water is like -- USGS sensors right now, where it has been sampled, the impaired-waters list, and how the tap water here stands with EPA -- is on the Water quality tab.

Designated groundwater basins are on their own page.

Source Adjudicated record · verify at DWR water-right transactions ↗ Source Adjudicated record · verify at DWR net amounts ↗

Decreed rights on this network run from 1880-05-01 to 2023-01-24. Of the 20 structures with a yield estimate, the median one’s senior right was in priority 11% of a median irrigation season and 1% in a dry one. 25 abandonment screens and 521 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: 4401 across 3293 structure(s); 504 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 2003–2025, administration on this district has been tightening: 1 of 3 measures (days under callA senior water right demanding its water, which requires everyone junior on that stream to stop diverting until it is satisfied., calls set, seniorityColorado shares water by date: the earlier the right, the stronger its claim when the river runs short. "First in time, first in right." of the controlling call) are moving toward more administration, none the other way.

Why diversions stopped — call-based explanations

Sustained diversion stops matched to senior administrative calls.

• BLAIR DITCH (4300546) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-08-22 (11+ days) — call at SLATER FORK DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• BIG FISH CREEK DITCH (4300540) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-08-18 (14+ days) — call at SLATER FORK DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• B P FRANKLIN DITCH 1 (4300515) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-07-31 (19+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• BARBOUR NORTH SIDE D (4300526) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-07-08 (33+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• BLAIR DITCH (4300546) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-07-03 (18+ days) — call at HOME DITCH NO 2 curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• B P FRANKLIN DITCH 1 (4300515) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-06-30 (9+ days) — call at HOME DITCH NO 2 curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• BOIES DITCH (4300548) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-06-15 (77+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• BLAIR DITCH (4300546) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-06-04 (5+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• BLAIR DITCH (4300546) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-05-19 (6+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• B M & H DITCH 1 (4300513) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-05-12 (6+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• BLAIR DITCH (4300546) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-09-03 (15+ days) — call at SIMON DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• BLACK EAGLE D NO 2 (4300544) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-07-26 (27+ days) — call at NICKELL DITCH curtailing 66% 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.

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).

• MACLEAR NO 2 DITCH (4300786) DWR↗☆ (1935-07-01, 0.8 cfs decreed): last active 1966 — 59 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1974) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• STORY SPRING 2 (4301138) DWR↗☆ (1986-10-10, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1968 — 57 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1974) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• GRIFFITH DITCH NO 1 (4300667) DWR↗☆ (1887-05-01, 0.3 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 56 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1974) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• SYLVAN SPRING (4301153) DWR↗☆ (1987-05-23, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 56 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1974) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• MOO POND SPRING (4301154) DWR↗☆ (1987-05-23, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 56 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1974) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• FEED YARD SPRING 2 (4301155) DWR↗☆ (1970-04-17, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 56 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1974) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• FEED YARD SPRING 3 (4301156) DWR↗☆ (1972-05-10, 0.2 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 56 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1974) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• FEED YARD SPRING 4 (4301157) DWR↗☆ (1974-10-04, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 56 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1974) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• ROJO SPRING PL 1 (4301158) DWR↗☆ (1955-06-25, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 56 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1974) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• ROJO SPRING PL 2 (4301159) DWR↗☆ (1955-06-25, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 56 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1974) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse

Compliance screens (521 advisory flags)

Screened 732 of 3293 structures with rights (850 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.

• FULTON IRR & FEEDER D (4300649) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 140.0 cfs (max 160.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 2.0 cfs across 13913 recorded day(s).
• POWELL PARK DITCH (4300883) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 90.0 cfs (max 118.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 82.6 cfs across 41741 recorded day(s).
• STEWART SPRING 1 (4301073) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 67.0 cfs (max 90.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 0.0 cfs across 1420 recorded day(s).
• MCCARTHY SPRING 1 (4301074) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 63.1 cfs (max 84.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 0.0 cfs across 1396 recorded day(s).
• MCDOWELL NO 2 DITCH (4301855) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 62.9 cfs (max 67.9) exceeds total decreed absolute 5.0 cfs across 5491 recorded day(s).
• OLD AGENCY DITCH (4300849) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 62.5 cfs (max 267.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 35.4 cfs across 21498 recorded day(s).
• RAINBOW LAKE DITCH (4300888) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 55.0 cfs (max 55.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 35.0 cfs across 35384 recorded day(s).
• LOWLAND DITCH (4300777) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 46.0 cfs (max 46.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 8.4 cfs across 13400 recorded day(s).
• SOUTH SIDE HIGHLINE D (4300935) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 38.1 cfs (max 57.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 33.0 cfs across 26338 recorded day(s).
• IMES & REYNOLDS DITCH (4300710) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 35.3 cfs (max 44.8) exceeds total decreed absolute 23.7 cfs across 16626 recorded day(s).

Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)

Recent inventory & legal-document changes

• 2026-10-20 — call released: 39597
• 2026-10-14 — call released: 36993
• 2026-10-14 — call released: 36909
• 2026-10-07 — call set: NICKELL DITCH (39682)
• 2026-10-07 — call released: 39576
• 2026-09-29 — call set: ELK RIVER MSF-L (39597)
• 2026-09-26 — call set: BIRD DITCH (39576)
• 2026-09-26 — call released: 39406

Water-court filings this month (division-wide)

3 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 (40 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.

The water itself, in this district

Four registers, each on its own schedule: what USGS sensors read right now, where samples have been taken, which stretches the state lists as impaired, and how the tap water of the systems here stands with EPA. None is a DWR record; each links its own page.

Right now

Source Provisional telemetry · fetched 2026-10-22 · verify at USGS current conditions ↗

1 USGS sensor reports temperature, conductance, dissolved oxygen or turbidity from inside this district; provisional readings, never merged into the verified record.

Where water has been sampled

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

The portal lists 1,839 sampling stations in this district's watersheds (Lower White 14050007, 39% of the district; Upper White 14050005, 36% of the district; Piceance-Yellow 14050006, 24% of the district), of which 58 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: USGS Colorado Water Science Center (46), Colorado Dept. of Public Health & Environment-WQCD (9), Colorado River Watch (3). Most-sampled groups: Physical, Nutrient, Inorganics, Major, Metals, Inorganics, Major, Non-metals. Every station as a file ↗

Results themselves are not fetched here; USGS samples added after March 2024 may not be in the portal's legacy profiles yet.

Drinking water

Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-07 · verify at EPA SDWIS ↗

4 community systems touch this district. None carries an open health-based violation on EPA's record. EPA sampled 0 of them for PFAS in 2023–25.

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.