Hydrohistorian
Little Snake River
Who may take water from the Little Snake River, who is calling for it today, and how it is running, compiled from Colorado Division of Water Resources records. Click anything on the map for its record.
Little Snake River on the ground — the ditches, wells, reservoirs and gages of Water District 55 · clicktap anything for its record
The well-permit cells in view, as a table
Each row is one ~1-mile cell (0.02°) with the permits the file spots inside it, split into water-supply permits and monitoring holes (DWR’s two monitoring categories: drilled to look at the water, not to pump it). These are permits, not wells: a permit is a piece of paper, and the file does not say which were drilled. Spotting is the file’s own, about a mile at best, which is why the cells are no finer.
| Lat | Lon | Water-supply permits | Monitoring holes |
|---|
Browse this district’s ditches, gages, reservoirs, wells and springs as a list.
The Little Snake River is critically low for late September -- 20% of normal flow. No call that the record places on it is active right now. DWR's statements do not settle whether 6 more calls reach it.
Schematic
Historical
Evolution of the network
Trends
Source Our computation, no independent reference · computed here from the screened DWR record Source Our computation, no independent reference · no independent reference; see /methods
This year, in context
In the weeks around 2026-10-03 (the newest reading on file), flows at the 3 ranked gages are running at a median 43% of their own long-term norm for this window — 3 below a typical year, 0 at or above. Driest relative to its record: LITTLE SNAKE RIVER NEAR LILY, CO, ranking 17th lowest of 106 years.
How this comparison is made
Each gage's mean flow over the 3 days either side of 2026-10-03, 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 2026-10-11 21:06 from 6 gage(s) with cached period-of-record data. The series is each gage's annual mean flow in cfsCubic feet per second, a rate of flow. One cfs running for a day is about 2 acre-feet. (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 6 gages with enough record shows a significant trend or a detected shift — which is itself the finding.
Drought history, cost, and the four-century context moved to the Drought tab.
No gage shows a statistically significant trend or changepoint yet.
6 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 18 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) |
|---|---|---|
| 1920s | 1 | 0 |
| 1930s | 1 | 0 |
| 1940s | 2 | 0 |
| 1950s | 2 | 0 |
| 1960s | 2 | 0 |
| 1970s | 2 | 11 |
| 1980s | 3 | 13 |
| 1990s | 4 | 17 |
| 2000s | 3 | 18 |
| 2010s | 3 | 18 |
| 2020s | 3 | 16 |
Mass-balance (network closure) trend
Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 6% of 337 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 (1988–2003)
Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to 1988 (40 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: 1 monitored well(s), water-table trends, stream corridors, and the advisory depletion screen.
Cross-gage pattern fingerprint
Over the 26-year window with full coverage (2001–2026), the dominant shared pattern across 3 gage(s) explains 95% 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.
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_20260928 (imported 2026-10-04) for history, plus the CDSS REST API for current conditions.
| Check | State | What was measured |
|---|---|---|
| gage freshness | stale | newest gage reading is 8 day(s) old (target 7) |
| diversion record | expected-lag | newest diversion record is 362 day(s) old (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears) |
| structure coverage | sparse | 6% of schematic structures have data |
Independent check: PASS — 100.0000% agreement across 90,869 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 — 98.13% day-level agreement with USGS's own published records for the same gages, across 6 co-listed station(s) and 87,954 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.
6 gage(s) / 87,385 daily values (1921-10-01–2026-10-03); 33 structure(s) with diversion records; 477 with decreed rights. Methodology has not yet had independent expert review — treat every figure as an advisory screen, not an administrative or legal conclusion.
Groundwater
Source DWR administrative record · verify at DWR groundwater wells ↗ Source DWR administrative record · verify at DWR well permits ↗
6 water-level measurements across 1 monitored well(s) — 0 alluvial, 0 bedrock — plus 2 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.
Snow and runoff
Source Independent agency measurement · fetched 2026-10-18 · verify at NRCS report generator ↗ Source Our computation, scored against a reference · NRCS forecast, graded here against the gage record
Snow-water equivalent, WY2027
| 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 — Little Snake R nr Lily
NRCS's final issue (2026-06-01) calls it even odds that at least 11 kAF arrives over 06-01 to 07-31 — 12% of a normal season; almost certainly at least 5, probably not more than 51. Our own record at this gage shows 10 kAF actually delivered (partial record: 52 of 61 days). 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 (24% typical miss unadjusted vs 24% adjusted), so none is shown — NRCS’s own forecast, unadjusted, is the best April benchmark available for this river. Why we test →
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 8 | 11 | 28 | 51 | 92 | 10 |
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 25%, with a high bias of 8%, and the observed volume landed inside the stated 10–90% band 78% 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 →
Drought
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 21st-driest week 40 in 106 years of record at LITTLE SNAKE RIVER NEAR LILY, CO (as of 2026-09-28; this week’s flow sits at the 20th 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, Routt County is 26% in D4 exceptional 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 1921, week by week
Each thin row is a year at LITTLE SNAKE RIVER NEAR LILY, 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 35 weeks recorded so far, 2026’s weekly trace most resembles 2013 (mean gap 17.4 percentile points; next closest 2025 (18.4), 2021 (18.5)). 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 Moffat, 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 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 | Flows recovered | Water table back |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unnamed dry spell | 2025-07-14 → 2026-03-02 | 33 | 13th (2025-09-08) | not yet | — |
| the 2020-22 drought | 2021-07-12 → 2022-02-14 | 31 | 9th (2021-09-20) | 6 weeks | — |
| the 2018 drought | 2018-07-09 → 2019-05-13 | 44 | 11th (2018-09-24) | 5 weeks | — |
| the 2012-13 drought | 2013-05-20 → 2013-12-30 | 32 | 11th (2013-09-02) | 5 weeks | — |
| the 2012-13 drought | 2012-08-20 → 2013-03-11 | 29 | 12th (2012-10-22) | 47 weeks | — |
| the 2002 drought | 2003-09-15 → 2004-08-23 | 49 | 18th (2004-01-05) | 11 weeks | — |
| the 2002 drought | 2002-02-25 → 2003-05-05 | 62 | 10th (2002-10-14) | 79 weeks | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 2000-11-20 → 2001-04-23 | 22 | 27th (2000-11-27) | 185 weeks | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 1994-07-18 → 1995-01-30 | 28 | 22nd (1994-09-26) | 1 week | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 1992-02-03 → 1993-01-18 | 50 | 20th (1992-05-25) | 24 weeks | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 1990-06-18 → 1991-09-16 | 65 | 19th (1991-05-06) | 94 weeks | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 1989-09-11 → 1990-02-12 | 22 | 20th (1989-10-23) | 177 weeks | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 1988-10-17 → 1989-03-13 | 21 | 27th (1988-12-12) | 225 weeks | — |
| unnamed dry spell | 1979-02-19 → 1979-07-23 | 22 | 21st (1979-03-26) | 0 weeks | — |
Detected mechanically: the 26-week smoothed percentile below the 30th for at least 20 weeks; recovered on regaining the 50th. The water-table clock compares each monitoring well against its own pre-drought median (the 3 years before onset) and dates the year the median well got back — the aquifer remembers longest, and “still below” is a finding, not a gap. The knobs are stated because the episode list depends on them — a different reasonable choice merges or splits episodes at the edges. Names are attached where an episode overlaps a drought Colorado already talks about.
What drought has cost here
Since 1991, federal crop insurance has paid $487,504 in drought-caused claims across Moffat, Routt counties — 1.4% 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 (461 rights across 106 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.
Legal
Who serves it, who protects it
Two registers the site fetches on their own schedules, read for this district. Neither is a DWR record; each links its own page and its agency.
Public water systems here
Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-06 · verify at EPA SDWIS ↗
No active public water system's service area or address falls in this district in EPA's file. All providers →
Instream-flow rights held by the state
Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-18 · verify at CWCB instream flow program ↗
The Board's tabulation lists no instream-flow reach or natural lake level in this district. Statewide →
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 1890-05-01 to 2023-03-30. Of the 20 structures with a yield estimate, the median one’s senior right was in priority 8% of a median irrigation season and 0% in a dry one. 4 abandonment screens and 10 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: 522 across 477 structure(s); 17 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.
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.
- ESCALANTA PUMP 2 (5500504) DWR↗ stopped 2025-08-24 (30+ days) — call at SLATER FORK DITCH [heuristic-strong]
- ESCALANTA PUMP 2 (5500504) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-24 (5+ days) — call at SQUARE S CONS D ALT PT [heuristic-strong]
- ESCALANTA PUMP 1 (5500503) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-19 (37+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH [heuristic-strong]
- MAJORS PUMP NO 1 (5500505) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-14 (5+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH [heuristic-strong]
- GORDON C. WINN PUMP 1 (5500514) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-10 (20+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- ONECO PUMP NO 2 (5500509) DWR↗ stopped 2025-07-08 (21+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- ESCALANTA PUMP 2 (5500504) DWR↗ stopped 2025-06-17 (13+ days) — call at WILLOW CK DITCH [heuristic-strong]
- ESCALANTA PUMP 1 (5500503) DWR↗ stopped 2025-06-16 (15+ days) — call at WILLOW CK DITCH [heuristic-strong]
- MAJORS PUMP NO 1 (5500505) DWR↗ stopped 2025-06-16 (18+ days) — call at WILLOW CK DITCH [heuristic-strong]
- ONECO PUMP NO 2 (5500509) DWR↗ stopped 2025-06-11 (15+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- LEFEVRE NO 1 PUMP (5500537) DWR↗ stopped 2025-06-11 (15+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
- MAJORS PUMP NO 2 (5500506) DWR↗ stopped 2025-05-22 (12+ 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAJORS PUMP NO 2 (5500506) DWR↗ | 1890-05-01 | 15.4% / 3.3% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| ONECO PUMP NO 2 (5500509) DWR↗ | 1890-05-01 | 15.4% / 3.3% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| RINKER PUMP D (5500519) DWR↗ | 1916-06-26 | 7.5% / 0.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| RAFTOPOULOS LSR PUMP (5501081) DWR↗ | 1924-06-01 | 7.9% / 0.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| LEFEVRE NO 1 PUMP (5500537) DWR↗ | 1975-09-17 | 7.5% / 0.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| DEWEY SHERIDAN D (5501011) DWR↗ | 1947-04-27 | 7.5% / 0.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| NINE MILE IRR DITCH (5500507) DWR↗ | 1950-02-17 | 7.9% / 0.0% | 7.9% / 0.0% |
| GORDON C. WINN PUMP 2 (5500515) DWR↗ | 1963-05-01 | 7.5% / 0.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| HELLS CANYON DITCH (5502035) DWR↗ | 1920-07-01 | 7.5% / 0.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| HAYSTACK PUMP (5502034) DWR↗ | 1936-08-01 | 7.5% / 0.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| NINE MILE IRR PL (5500508) DWR↗ | 1961-08-14 | 7.5% / 0.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| DUNN PUMP & PL (5500538) DWR↗ | 1975-10-01 | 7.5% / 0.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
Abandonment radar (4 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).
- ARAMBEL WELL 2 (5506003) DWR↗ (1955-06-15, 0.2 cfs decreed): last active 1986 — 37 years idle
- ESCALANTA DITCH (5500516) DWR↗ (1899-10-01, 6.0 cfs decreed): last active 2003 — 20 years idle
- PERUSEK DITCH (5500510) DWR↗ (1928-09-24, 3.8 cfs decreed): last active 2008 — 15 years idle
- HELLS CANYON DITCH (5502035) DWR↗ (1920-07-01, 7.0 cfs decreed): last active 2013 — 10 years idle
Compliance screens (10 advisory flags)
Screened 25 of 477 structures with rights (30 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.
- RAFTOPOULOS LSR PUMP (5501081) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 14.0 cfs (max 14.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 11.8 cfs across 6296 recorded day(s).
- LEFEVRE NO 1 PUMP (5500537) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 11.3 cfs (max 15.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 10.0 cfs across 6839 recorded day(s).
- NINE MILE IRR DITCH (5500507) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 10.0 cfs (max 10.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 8.0 cfs across 5726 recorded day(s).
- PERUSEK DITCH (5500510) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 10.0 cfs (max 18.8) exceeds total decreed absolute 3.8 cfs across 2008 recorded day(s).
- HAYSTACK PUMP (5502034) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 9.3 cfs (max 10.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 6.7 cfs across 1514 recorded day(s).
- NINE MILE IRR PL (5500508) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 8.0 cfs (max 8.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 6.5 cfs across 6536 recorded day(s).
- GORDON C. WINN PUMP 1 (5500514) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 8.0 cfs (max 8.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 2.2 cfs across 6158 recorded day(s).
- ADOLPH EDINGER D & PL (5500502) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 4.1 cfs (max 4.7) exceeds total decreed absolute 4.0 cfs across 384 recorded day(s).
- STUDEBAKER PUMP (5502037) DWR↗: Observed p99 daily rate 3.0 cfs (max 3.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 2.0 cfs across 2324 recorded day(s).
- KAWCAK PUMP EAST (5500558) DWR↗: All rights on this structure are conditional (no absolute decree), but divrec shows 30 day(s) of nonzero diversion -- worth checking whether an absolute right was decreed since the cached net amounts, or the diversions run under another plan.
Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)
| Structure | Senior priority date | Rights | Decreed abs (cfs) | Decreed abs (AF) | Conditional? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MAJORS PUMP NO 2 (5500506) DWR↗ | 1890-05-01 | 6 | 18.6 | 0 | — |
| ONECO PUMP NO 2 (5500509) DWR↗ | 1890-05-01 | 6 | 15.3 | 0 | — |
| RINKER PUMP D (5500519) DWR↗ | 1916-06-26 | 3 | 12.0 | 0 | — |
| RAFTOPOULOS LSR PUMP (5501081) DWR↗ | 1924-06-01 | 3 | 11.8 | 69 | — |
| LEFEVRE NO 1 PUMP (5500537) DWR↗ | 1975-09-17 | 1 | 10.0 | 0 | — |
| DEWEY SHERIDAN D (5501011) DWR↗ | 1947-04-27 | 1 | 10.0 | 0 | — |
| NINE MILE IRR DITCH (5500507) DWR↗ | 1950-02-17 | 1 | 8.0 | 0 | — |
| GORDON C. WINN PUMP 2 (5500515) DWR↗ | 1963-05-01 | 1 | 7.8 | 0 | — |
| HELLS CANYON DITCH (5502035) DWR↗ | 1920-07-01 | 1 | 7.0 | 0 | — |
| HAYSTACK PUMP (5502034) DWR↗ | 1936-08-01 | 1 | 6.7 | 0 | — |
| NINE MILE IRR PL (5500508) DWR↗ | 1961-08-14 | 2 | 6.5 | 0 | — |
| ESCALANTA DITCH (5500516) DWR↗ | 1899-10-01 | 1 | 6.0 | 0 | — |
| DUNN PUMP & PL (5500538) DWR↗ | 1975-10-01 | 1 | 6.0 | 0 | — |
| VISINTAINER DITCH (5500513) DWR↗ | 1929-09-09 | 2 | 5.0 | 0 | — |
| ONECO DITCH (5501509) DWR↗ | 1901-04-29 | 1 | 4.2 | 0 | — |
Recent inventory & legal-document changes
- 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
- 2026-09-24 — call set: VAIL SAVAGE DITCH (39558)
- 2026-09-21 — call released: 39475
- 2026-09-21 — call released: 39416
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 (13 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… |
Water quality
The water itself, in this district
Four registers, each on its own schedule: what USGS sensors read right now, where samples have been taken, which stretches the state lists as impaired, and how the tap water of the systems here stands with EPA. None is a DWR record; each links its own page.
Right now
Source Provisional telemetry · fetched 2026-10-18 · 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.
| Site | Temp °C | Cond µS/cm | DO mg/L | Turb FNU | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| YAMPA RIVER AT DEERLODGE PARK, CO | 7.4 | 2026-10-18 11:15 |
Where water has been sampled
Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-08 · verify at Water Quality Portal ↗
The portal lists 654 sampling stations in this district's watersheds (Little Snake 14050003, 72% of the district; Lower Yampa 14050002, 27% of the district), of which 11 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: Mountain Studies Institute (MSI) (3), USGS Colorado Water Science Center (3), Colorado Dept. of Public Health & Environment-WQCD (3). Most-sampled groups: Physical, Nutrient, Inorganics, Major, Non-metals, Inorganics, Minor, 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 ↗
No community water system's service area or address falls in this district in EPA's file. All providers →
Impaired waters
Source Register of another agency · verify at EPA ATTAINS ↗
The state's 303(d) impaired-waters list has not been joined to this basin's own watershed boundary yet, so nothing is shown rather than a guess; the basins with a join carry the full list here. Why the join is geometry, not a name match.
Call cascade
If a call were placed at a given seniority, which structures in this basin would be out of priority, and how much of their decreed rate would be curtailed? Computed from this basin's cached decrees.
What this does and doesn't model. Seniority arithmetic only: every right junior to the call is treated as curtailed. It does not model reach applicability — structures downstream of the calling point are not administered by it — and it applies no futile-call judgment. Read it as “who is junior to this date, and by how much,” not as a prediction of what the Division Engineer would actually order.
Pick a calling right
Real decrees from this basin, ordered by administration number — that is, by actual seniority. The years will look out of order, and that is correct: an administration number encodes the adjudication date as well as the appropriation date, so a right appropriated in 1970 can be administered ahead of one from 1950. A senior call curtails almost everything; a junior one curtails almost nothing.
Or enter an administration number directly
DWR administration numbers encode appropriation and adjudication dates; lower is more senior.
This week's diagnostic
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System status
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Active river calls
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Hydrographs vs. historical envelope
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Anomaly flags
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Runoff outlook — Little Snake R nr Lily: even odds of at least 11 kAF over 06-01 to 07-31 — 12% 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
Little Snake R nr Lily — 06-01 to 07-31 volume, thousand acre-feet (chance the volume is AT LEAST this):
| 90% | 70% | 50% | 30% | 10% | Normal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 8 | 11 | 28 | 51 | 92 |
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: 1 parent disagreement, 5 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 6 streams, 5 agree. Know this water? Tell us →
| Stream | This site routes it to | DWR routes it to |
|---|---|---|
| Buffalo Gulch | the mainstem | Yampa River |
Sizable streams DWR maps here that this network does not carry:
Powder Wash (30 mi) · Greasewood Gulch (19 mi) · Thompson Draw (14 mi) · Deep Canyon (5 mi) · Rice Draw (4 mi)