Lower Yampa River

Division 6 · Water District 44

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Lower Yampa River on the ground — the ditches, wells, reservoirs and gages of Water District 44 · clicktap anything for its record

The drilled-depth cells in view, as a table

Each row is one ~3-mile cell (0.04°): the median of the depths drillers filed for the wells spotted inside it, and how many wells that median stands on. Cells with fewer than five filed depths are left blank on the map and out of this table. This is the driller’s own number, filed once when the well was drilled; it says how deep wells here typically go, not where the water table is and not whether wells are getting deeper. Spotting is the file’s own, about a mile at best.

Lat	Lon	Median drilled depth, ft	Wells with a depth

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

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

9 calls active on it right now

The Yampa River is critically low for late June -- 5% of normal flow, its 6th-driest such week in 111 years of record. 9 calls stand against it right now; the most senior right calling dates to 1882.

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 5 ranked gages are running at a median 10% of their own long-term norm for this window — 5 below a typical year, 0 at or above. Driest relative to its record: WILLIAMS FORK AT MOUTH NEAR HAMILTON, ranking 1st lowest of 22 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 21:02 from 31 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 31 gages with enough record, 0 are trending down and 3 up. The clearest is Milk Creek near Thornburgh, its annual mean flow changing +9.05 cfs per decade (+33.2% of its median annual flow) over 33 years (p=0.0025). The other 28 show no clear signal either way.

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

Gage	Trend	Change / decade cfs · % of median annual flow	Significance	Years	Changepoint
▸ Milk Creek near Thornburgh MILTHOCO	↑ increasing	+9.05 cfs +33.2%	p=0.003	33	—
▸ Elkhead Creek near Clark ELKHEACO	↑ increasing	+17.33 cfs +54.6%	p=0.029	14	—
▸ North Fork Elkhead Creek near Elkhead NOFELKCO	↑ increasing	+6.44 cfs +38.6%	p=0.049	14	—

28 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. 6 gage(s) and 354 structure(s) report in 2026, but structure reporting only reached half its modern level around ~1979. Every historical claim below is checked against this: long-term shifts that co-move with the growth of the network carry an explicit measurement-evolution caution, and abandonment screens whose idleness begins before the modern reporting era are flagged †.

Decade	Gages with data (median yr)	Structures reporting (median yr)
1900s	2	0
1910s	4	0
1920s	2	0
1930s	1	76
1940s	2	37
1950s	4	97
1960s	8	124
1970s	8	186
1980s	7	220
1990s	6	240
2000s	5	266
2010s	5	302
2020s	6	314

Mass-balance (network closure) trend

Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 5% of 2864 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 (1953–2026)

Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to 1953 (733 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: 134 monitored well(s), water-table trends, stream corridors, and the advisory depletion screen.

Reservoirs now has its own tab: 78 reservoir(s), end-of-year storage back to 1900, click-to-chart histories.

Cross-gage pattern fingerprint

Not enough gages with a long enough common-coverage window yet to fingerprint shared patterns.

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.

DEEP GULCH RES NO 2 (diversion): -13.4 cfs (6% of that reach's correction)
BOGENSCHUTZ DITCH (diversion): -13.4 cfs (6% of that reach's correction)
WHEELER #3 (return): -13.4 cfs (6% of that reach's correction)
LOUDY RESERVOIR (diversion): -13.4 cfs (6% of that reach's correction)
AIRLINE PUMPSITE #1 (diversion): -13.4 cfs (6% of that reach's correction)
WHEAT SEEP (return): -13.4 cfs (6% of that reach's correction)
RED ANGUS SPRING (return): -13.4 cfs (6% of that reach's correction)
SILVER SPG NO 4 (return): -13.4 cfs (6% of that reach's correction)
AIR LINE IRR D (diversion): -13.4 cfs (6% of that reach's correction)
AIRLINE PUMPSITE AP #2 (diversion): -13.4 cfs (6% of that reach's correction)

Data provenance & quality

Where these numbers come from and how far they can be trusted. Grade C (3/6 points) — the components below are the finding; the letter alone is not. Sources: DWR HydroBase snapshot HydroBase_CO_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	expected-lag	newest diversion record is 325 day(s) old (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears)
structure coverage	sparse	5% of schematic structures have data

Independent check: PASS — 100.0000% agreement across 122,540 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.

31 gage(s) / 194,985 daily values (1904-01-01–2026-07-06); 624 structure(s) with diversion records; 3562 with decreed rights. Methodology has not yet had independent expert review — treat every figure as an advisory screen, not an administrative or legal conclusion.

711 water-level measurements across 134 monitored well(s) — 60 alluvial, 1 bedrock — plus 6 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 1 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.

78 reservoir(s) with 4,817 storage measurement(s), 1900–2026. Basin storage as of 2025-10-31 (the record's own end — reservoir records publish ~annually): 17,374 AF across 34 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)
▸ ELKHEAD CREEK RESERVOIR (4403902)	16,421	2025-10-31	—	—	dossier →
▸ ROBB PIT (4404436)	807	2004-09-03	—	—	dossier →
▸ FREDRICKSON RES NO 2 (4403732)	720	1982-05-12	—	—	dossier →
▸ RAW WATER RESERVOIR (4403912)	553	2006-05-15	—	—	dossier →
▸ RALPH WHITE RES (4403724)	308	1984-10-17	—	—	dossier →
▸ POOSE CK RES (4403701)	291	2025-10-31	—	—	dossier →
▸ FLAT TOP RES (4403925)	100	2025-10-31	—	—	dossier →
▸ WILSON RESERVOIR (4403674)	85	2025-10-31	—	—	dossier →

Snow-water equivalent, WY2026

SNOTEL site	Elev (ft)	SWE (in)	Median (in)	% of median	Typical peak

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.

Runoff outlook — Elkhead Ck ab Long Gulch

NRCS's final issue (2026-06-01) calls it even odds that at least 1 kAF arrives over 06-01 to 07-31 — 15% of a normal season; almost certainly at least 0, probably not more than 4. Our own record at this gage shows 1 kAF actually delivered (partial record: 36 of 61 days). New forecasts begin in January. How to read these numbers →

90% chance of at least	70% chance of at least	50% chance of at least	30% chance of at least	10% chance of at least	Normal	Observed
0	0	1	2	4	7	1

How good are these forecasts here? (2011–2025)

Grading every April issue against what the river then delivered, measured at this gage’s own record — 15 seasons: the median miss of the 50% forecast is 27%, with a high bias of 3%, and the observed volume landed inside the stated 10–90% band 80% 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 →

Runoff outlook — Yampa R nr Maybell

NRCS's final issue (2026-06-01) calls it even odds that at least 73 kAF arrives over 06-01 to 07-31 — 21% of a normal season; almost certainly at least 32, probably not more than 140. Our own record at this gage shows 67 kAF actually delivered (partial record: 36 of 61 days). New forecasts begin in January. How to read these numbers →

90% chance of at least	70% chance of at least	50% chance of at least	30% chance of at least	10% chance of at least	Normal	Observed
32	52	73	105	140	340	67

How good are these forecasts here? (1965–2025)

Grading every April issue against what the river then delivered, measured at this gage’s own record — 60 seasons: the median miss of the 50% forecast is 17%, 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%).

Right now

This is the 6th-driest week 27 in 111 years of record at YAMPA RIVER NEAR MAYBELL, CO (as of 2026-06-29; this week’s flow sits at the 5th percentile for the date). On this week’s US Drought Monitor, Rio Blanco County is 9% in D4 exceptional drought (2026-09-01). The law agrees: the most senior active call leaves 99% of this district’s decreed flow rights junior to the calling right this week.

Every year since 1916, week by week

Each thin row is a year at YAMPA RIVER NEAR MAYBELL, 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 Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt 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 (114 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	2025-07-28 → 2026-04-20	38	18th (2025-10-06)	not yet
the 2020-22 drought	2022-05-30 → 2023-06-26	56	21st (2023-04-03)	7 weeks
the 2020-22 drought	2020-10-26 → 2022-02-21	69	8th (2021-09-20)	77 weeks
the 2018 drought	2018-08-13 → 2019-07-01	46	14th (2018-12-03)	2 weeks
the 2012-13 drought	2012-08-06 → 2013-11-25	68	8th (2012-10-29)	1 week
unnamed dry spell	2010-03-08 → 2010-08-16	23	23rd (2010-05-10)	12 weeks
the 2002 drought	2001-09-03 → 2003-07-21	98	5th (2002-11-04)	71 weeks
unnamed dry spell	1994-08-15 → 1995-07-17	48	6th (1994-11-21)	0 weeks
unnamed dry spell	1989-07-03 → 1990-04-23	42	15th (1989-10-23)	97 weeks
unnamed dry spell	1988-11-21 → 1989-05-01	23	27th (1989-02-20)	148 weeks
the 1981 drought	1981-01-12 → 1982-02-15	57	11th (1981-05-11)	3 weeks
the 1977 drought	1977-01-17 → 1978-05-29	71	7th (1977-08-22)	2 weeks
unnamed dry spell	1975-01-13 → 1975-07-28	28	25th (1975-02-03)	0 weeks
unnamed dry spell	1966-09-05 → 1967-07-24	46	16th (1966-11-07)	11 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.

What drought has cost here

Since 1991, federal crop insurance has paid $500,121 in drought-caused claims across Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt counties — 1.2% of all insured crop losses there. The worst year was 2013 ($227,009).

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 (3,205 rights across 111 years of shared record), colored by that year’s wetness from the barcode above. Here the correlation is -0.02 — essentially no wet-dry pattern; here, law and settlement set the pace, not the weather. Across the state both behaviors exist: ephemeral southwest basins file after wet demonstrations, transbasin-source basins under drought — and the biggest statewide filing waves sat in the 1950s drought and after 2002, not in the wet 1980s–90s.

Appropriation dates are the CLAIMED initiation of a right, not the courthouse filing date; the record is survivor-biased (abandoned claims are absent, so failed dry-era scrambles are undercounted); and the big 1960s and 2000s spikes sit on legal events — the pre-1969-Act adjudication era and 2000s legislation — not on weather. A correlation here is a description, never a cause.

New to how a dry winter becomes a call on the river? Anatomy of a drought walks the chain in four minutes — snow to rivers to reservoirs to calls to the water table.

Decreed rights on this network run from 1879-05-01 to 2022-06-01. Of the 20 structures with a yield estimate, the median one’s senior right was in priority 15% of a median irrigation season and 2% in a dry one. 25 abandonment screens and 267 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: 3979 across 3562 structure(s); 203 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 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 (23 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	204	38	1882-04-01
2015	215	27	1882-04-01
2016	198	56	1882-04-01
2017	185	73	1883-06-30
2018	197	95	1882-04-01
2019	177	30	1882-04-01
2020	204	109	1882-04-01
2021	250	158	1882-04-01
2022	249	87	1882-04-01
2023	365	50	1904-01-02
2024	306	75	1882-04-01
2025	186	97	1882-04-01

Why diversions stopped — call-based explanations

Sustained diversion stops matched to senior administrative calls.

YELLOW JACKET DITCH NO 2 (4400519) DWR↗ stopped 2025-09-23 (38+ days) — call at KIWA DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
A Q DITCH 2 (4400525) DWR↗ stopped 2025-09-16 (45+ days) — call at BIRD DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
LILY PARK DITCH NO 1 (4400500) DWR↗ stopped 2025-08-11 (15+ days) — call at J P MORIN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
BEHRMAN DITCH 1 (4400529) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-25 (74+ days) — call at SQUARE S CONS D ALT PT curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
WISCONSIN DITCH (4400511) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-17 (106+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
A Q DITCH 2 (4400525) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-13 (21+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
B DAYTON DITCH (4400539) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-05 (30+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
8 F DITCH NO 1 (4400521) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-04 (36+ days) — call at HOME DITCH NO 2 curtailing 67% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]
WOLFE DITCH (4400513) DWR↗ stopped 2025-06-11 (69+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
BAKER COTTONWOOD D (4400542) DWR↗ stopped 2025-06-06 (7+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
ALEX HERON NO 1 DITCH (4400531) DWR↗ stopped 2025-06-04 (6+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
A Q DITCH 1 (4400524) DWR↗ stopped 2025-05-14 (49+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN 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
MAYBELL CANAL (4400694) DWR↗	1899-10-02	15.2% / 2.3%	7.5% / 0.0%
DEEP CUT IRRIGATING DITCH (4400589) DWR↗	1884-05-13	24.1% / 7.5%	7.5% / 0.0%
JUNIPER MOUNTAIN TUNNEL AND IRRIGATION D (4400675) DWR↗	1890-04-02	15.4% / 2.3%	7.5% / 0.0%
MARTIN CK DITCH (4400692) DWR↗	1900-05-30	15.4% / 2.3%	10.0% / 0.0%
D D & E DITCH (4400586) DWR↗	1888-03-01	17.6% / 5.6%	7.5% / 0.0%
CRAIG STATION DITCH AND PIPELINE NO1 (4400522) DWR↗	1895-06-25	15.4% / 2.3%	7.5% / 0.0%
LILY PARK DITCH NO 1 (4400500) DWR↗	1886-04-10	21.9% / 5.6%	21.9% / 5.6%
WISCONSIN DITCH (4400511) DWR↗	1888-05-19	17.6% / 5.6%	7.5% / 0.0%
WILLIAMS FORK RIVER MSF (4401448) DWR↗	1992-09-16	7.5% / 0.0%	7.5% / 0.0%
NORVELL DITCH (4400724) DWR↗	1885-05-14	21.9% / 5.6%	10.0% / 0.0%
SYNTHETIC PRODUCTS DITCH (4400779) DWR↗	1895-06-25	15.4% / 2.3%	7.5% / 0.0%
MCKINLAY DITCH NO 2 (4400700) DWR↗	1890-05-01	16.4% / 4.7%	7.5% / 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 ~1979 — idleness that begins before then may be unreported use, not nonuse (flagged † below).

PERRY LUCAS DITCH (4400732) DWR↗ (1903-06-03, 2.3 cfs decreed): last active 1938 — 87 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1979) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
DIAMOND DITCH (4400595) DWR↗ (1903-11-15, 0.5 cfs decreed): last active 1940 — 85 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1979) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
WILLOW CK DITCH (4400508) DWR↗ (1898-05-06, 0.3 cfs decreed): last active 1964 — 61 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1979) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
GOOD SPRING DITCH NO 1 (4400631) DWR↗ (1885-05-20, 0.5 cfs decreed): last active 1966 — 59 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1979) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
GOOD SPRINGS DITCH NO 2 (4400632) DWR↗ (1885-05-20, 1.0 cfs decreed): last active 1966 — 59 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1979) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
CRAIG IRR DITCH (4400580) DWR↗ (1890-03-31, 11.1 cfs decreed): last active 1978 — 47 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1979) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
FLOYD BUTTS WELL (4405002) DWR↗ (1954-09-27, 0.2 cfs decreed): last active 1980 — 45 years idle
MILLER WELL (4405004) DWR↗ (1940-07-31, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1980 — 45 years idle
SJOSTROM SPG NO 1 (4400881) DWR↗ (1977-08-01, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1981 — 44 years idle
OSBORN BARN PUMP (4401055) DWR↗ (1944-06-07, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1981 — 44 years idle

Compliance screens (267 advisory flags)

Screened 403 of 3562 structures with rights (498 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.

D D & E DITCH (4400586) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 60.1 cfs (max 64.4) exceeds total decreed absolute 49.3 cfs across 12394 recorded day(s).
MILK CREEK DITCH (4400706) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 40.0 cfs (max 45.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 20.0 cfs across 12166 recorded day(s).
WISCONSIN DITCH (4400511) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 32.8 cfs (max 35.5) exceeds total decreed absolute 32.0 cfs across 15023 recorded day(s).
SMITH DITCH (4400763) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 30.1 cfs (max 30.1) exceeds total decreed absolute 21.0 cfs across 10590 recorded day(s).
CRAIG IRR DITCH (4400580) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 30.0 cfs (max 30.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 11.1 cfs across 5156 recorded day(s).
MCKINLAY DITCH NO 1 (4400699) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 30.0 cfs (max 30.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 8.3 cfs across 8842 recorded day(s).
MCKINLAY DITCH NO 2 (4400700) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 30.0 cfs (max 46.4) exceeds total decreed absolute 25.7 cfs across 10130 recorded day(s).
DEER CK & MORAPOS D (4400590) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 28.3 cfs (max 34.2) exceeds total decreed absolute 19.5 cfs across 16043 recorded day(s).
EGRY MESA DITCH (4400607) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 27.0 cfs (max 40.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 22.9 cfs across 41448 recorded day(s).
D D FERGUSON D NO 2 (4400587) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 26.8 cfs (max 30.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 18.3 cfs across 11558 recorded day(s).

Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)

Structure	Senior priority date	Rights	Decreed abs (cfs)	Decreed abs (AF)	Conditional?
MAYBELL CANAL (4400694) DWR↗	1899-10-02	3	149.0	0	—
DEEP CUT IRRIGATING DITCH (4400589) DWR↗	1884-05-13	6	68.7	0	—
JUNIPER MOUNTAIN TUNNEL AND IRRIGATION D (4400675) DWR↗	1890-04-02	5	67.0	0	—
MARTIN CK DITCH (4400692) DWR↗	1900-05-30	3	62.0	0	—
D D & E DITCH (4400586) DWR↗	1888-03-01	6	49.3	582	—
CRAIG STATION DITCH AND PIPELINE NO1 (4400522) DWR↗	1895-06-25	25	44.9	0	yes
LILY PARK DITCH NO 1 (4400500) DWR↗	1886-04-10	1	36.7	0	—
WISCONSIN DITCH (4400511) DWR↗	1888-05-19	3	32.0	0	—
NORVELL DITCH (4400724) DWR↗	1885-05-14	2	30.0	0	—
WILLIAMS FORK RIVER MSF (4401448) DWR↗	1992-09-16	1	30.0	0	—
SYNTHETIC PRODUCTS DITCH (4400779) DWR↗	1895-06-25	25	26.8	0	—
MCKINLAY DITCH NO 2 (4400700) DWR↗	1890-05-01	4	25.7	0	—
VAUGHN PUMP (4401122) DWR↗	1984-04-18	1	25.0	0	—
ELKHEAD CREEK (LOWER) IS (4402557) DWR↗	2017-01-24	1	24.0	0	—
HUSTON DITCH (4400657) DWR↗	1892-08-10	2	23.5	0	—

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

Water-court filings this month (division-wide)

5 applications in the 2026-08 resume for this basin's division — new rights, changes, augmentation plans — from the water clerk's statutory monthly notice (C.R.S. 37-92-302), the earliest public signal of a new claim. Filings are division-wide, not district-filtered: check the county column. Full resume PDF at the Judicial Branch →

Anyone affected may file a statement of opposition until 2026-10-31 (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 5 filings, with excerpts

Case	What it asks	County	Excerpt
`2026CW10`	—	ROUTT	2026CW10 Routt County Application for Absolute Water Rights (Storage). Applicant: Wilton Earle 785 Valley View Drive Craig, CO 81625; 970-824-6258; rettae74@gmail.com.; Logan Earle 785 Valley View Drive Craig, CO 81625; 970-620-5288; earlelogan679@gmail.com St…
`2026CW11`	—	RIO BLANCO	2026CW11 Rio Blanco County Application for Simple Change in Surface Point of Diversion. Applicants: John and Diana Hartman, 2804 E Main Street, Rangely, CO 81648, 970-618-0088, dgrantelk@gmail.com Structure: Calvat Ditch. Original Decree: CA099. Case: 11/26/19…
`2026CW3009`	reasonable diligence	—	2026CW3009 ROUTT AND RIO BLANCO COUNTIES, Prima Ranches LLC, c/o David Harbaugh, 3575 E Cherry Creek North Drive, Denver, CO 80209, (303) 478-8997. Please address all correspondence to: Geoffrey M. Williamson, Katherine Carter, Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti LLP…
`2026CW3010`	change of water right, plan for augmentation, new underground right	ROUTT	2026CW3010 ROUTT COUNTY Water Division: 6. DISTRICT COURT, WATER DIVISION SIX, STATE OF COLORADO, Routt County Combined Court, 1955 Shield Drive, Unit 200, Steamboat Springs, CO 80487. CONCERNING THE APPLICATION FOR WATER RIGHTS OF SIDNEY PEAK RANCH OWNERS’ AS…
`2026CW3011`	change of water right	RIO BLANCO	2026CW3011 RIO BLANCO COUNTY – WHITE RIVER. Mahogany Ranch, LLC, c/o Kevin L. Patrick, and John M. Sittler, Patrick, Miller & Noto, P.C., 229 Midland Ave., Basalt, CO 81621. (970) 920-1030. APPLICATION FOR CHANGE OF WATER RIGHT. Summary of Application: Applica…

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.

Runoff outlook — Elkhead Ck ab Long Gulch: even odds of at least 1 kAF over 06-01 to 07-31 — 15% of a normal season, per NRCS, issued 2026-06-01 — the season’s final; new forecasts begin in January. Runoff outlook — Yampa R nr Maybell: even odds of at least 73 kAF over 06-01 to 07-31 — 21% of a normal season, per NRCS, issued 2026-06-01 — the season’s final; new forecasts begin in January. Full snow & runoff picture — charts, forecast history and how the forecasts have verified →

Sites, exceedance bands and sources

Elkhead Ck ab Long Gulch — 06-01 to 07-31 volume, thousand acre-feet (chance the volume is AT LEAST this):

90%	70%	50%	30%	10%	Normal
0	0	1	2	4	7

Yampa R nr Maybell — 06-01 to 07-31 volume, thousand acre-feet (chance the volume is AT LEAST this):

90%	70%	50%	30%	10%	Normal
32	52	73	105	140	340

Snow-water equivalent and medians (1991–2020) from NRCS SNOTEL; seasonal volume forecasts from the NRCS National Water and Climate Center. Sites and forecast points are assigned to the district whose boundary contains them — snowpack that feeds this district can also sit in a neighboring headwater district. Toggle the Snow chip on the map above to see the sites.

Topology cross-check: 8 parent disagreements, 15 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 23 streams, 15 agree. Know this water? Tell us →

Stream	This site routes it to	DWR routes it to
Dry Fork Little Bear Creek	the mainstem	Little Bear Creek
Blue Gravel Creek	the mainstem	Fortification Creek
Big Gulch	the mainstem	Lay Creek
Corral Gulch	the mainstem	Elkhead Creek
Rock Spring Gulch	the mainstem	Elkhead Creek
Good Spring Creek	the mainstem	Milk Creek
Sand Creek	the mainstem	East Fork Williams Fork
Morapos Creek	the mainstem	Williams Fork

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

Williams Fork (28 mi) · Morgan Creek (18 mi) · Maudlin Gulch (17 mi) · Temple Gulch (16 mi) · Sand Spring Gulch (13 mi) · Cedar Springs Draw (12 mi) · Jesse Gulch (11 mi) · Pine Ridge Gulch (7 mi)

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