Middle Yampa River

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 2001-09-30 (the newest reading on file), flows at the 3 ranked gages are running at a median 0% of their own long-term norm for this window — 3 below a typical year, 0 at or above. Driest relative to its record: FOIDEL CREEK AT MOUTH NEAR OAK CREEK, CO, ranking 1st lowest of 27 years.

Gage flow trend & changepoints

None of the 12 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.

12 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. 0 gage(s) and 136 structure(s) report in 2025, but structure reporting only reached half its modern level around ~1985. 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: 13% of 423 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 (1980–1997)

Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to 1980 (8 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: 129 monitored well(s), water-table trends, stream corridors, and the advisory depletion screen.

Reservoirs now has its own tab: 165 reservoir(s), end-of-year storage back to 1939, click-to-chart histories.

Cross-gage pattern fingerprint

Over the 17-year window with full coverage (1985–2001), the dominant shared pattern across 3 gage(s) explains 93% 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.

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

1,311 water-level measurements across 129 monitored well(s) — 99 alluvial, 0 bedrock — plus 13 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 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.

Source DWR administrative record · verify at DWR structure records ↗

165 reservoir(s) with 7,025 storage measurement(s), 1939–2026. Basin storage as of 2025-10-31 (the record's own end — reservoir records publish ~annually): 1,156 AF across 30 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 Our computation, no independent reference · computed here from the screened DWR record Source Independent agency measurement · fetched 2026-10-27 · verify at U.S. Drought Monitor ↗

Right now

This is the 10th-driest week 39 in 26 years of record at MIDDLE CREEK NEAR OAK CREEK, CO (as of 2001-09-24; this week’s flow sits at the 21st 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 12% in D4 exceptional drought (2026-10-27). 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 1975, week by week

Each thin row is a year at MIDDLE CREEK NEAR OAK CREEK, 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 39 weeks recorded so far, 2001’s weekly trace most resembles 1991 (mean gap 16.5 percentile points; next closest 1993 (17.1), 1976 (18.0)). 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 Routt county — 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 (63 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 1998, federal crop insurance has paid $185,072 in drought-caused claims across Routt county — 5.1% of all insured crop losses there. The worst year was 2013 ($98,049).

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.

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 ↗

2 systems touch this district (2 community systems reporting 4,082 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 2026-11-01 · verify at CWCB instream flow program ↗

6 reaches over 40.6 miles, held by the Colorado Water Conservation Board so that water stays in the stream. Every reach, with its schedule and case →

• Trout Creek, 24.0 mi: 5 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1977, 77W1338) · dossier
• Trout Creek, 6.64 mi: 1.1 (11/01 - 03/31), 5.7 (04/01 - 06/30), 5 (08/01 - 10/31) cfs (appropriated 2019, 20CW3055)
• Sand Creek, 3.5 mi: 4 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1977, 77W1339) · dossier
• Fish Creek, 3.0 mi: 1 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1977, 77W1341) · dossier
• Trout Creek, 2.0 mi: 5 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1977, 77W1337) · dossier
• Austrian Creek, 1.5 mi: 1 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1977, 77W1342) · dossier

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 1881-10-20 to 2021-06-30. Of the 20 structures with a yield estimate, the median one’s senior right was in priority 17% of a median irrigation season and 5% in a dry one. 25 abandonment screens and 100 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: 1336 across 1003 structure(s); 62 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.

• MIDDLE CREEK DITCH (5700565) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-07-31 (20+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• HOMESTEAD DITCH (5700545) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-07-26 (66+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• MALE MOORE CO DITCH (5700561) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-07-26 (12+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• MARSHALL ROBERTS DITCH (5700563) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-07-04 (19+ days) — call at HOME DITCH NO 2 curtailing 54% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]
• BROCK DITCH (5700508) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-06-30 (123+ days) — call at HOME DITCH NO 2 curtailing 79% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]
• MIDDLE CREEK DITCH (5700565) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-06-24 (26+ days) — call at WILLOW CK DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• DENNIS & BLEWITT DITCH (5700519) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-06-06 (22+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• MARION YOAST OUTLET D (5700562) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-05-31 (143+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• J O K DITCH (5700549) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-05-29 (12+ days) — call at METZ & REIGAN DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• BROCK DITCH (5700508) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-08-17 (33+ days) — call at COLLINS DITCH curtailing 79% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]
• DAVID M CHAPMAN DITCH 2 (5700518) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-08-16 (297+ days) — call at NICKELL DITCH curtailing 69% of its decreed rate [heuristic-partial]
• MALE MOORE CO DITCH (5700561) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-08-05 (313+ days) — call at NICKELL 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.

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 ~1985 — idleness that begins before then may be unreported use, not nonuse (flagged † below).

• EAST SIGNS SPRING (5700684) DWR↗☆ (1972-03-20, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1957 — 68 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1985) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• TOW CREEK DITCH 2 (5700602) DWR↗☆ (1890-06-01, 2.0 cfs decreed): last active 1958 — 67 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1985) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• ECKMAN PARK DITCH 1 (5700529) DWR↗☆ (1905-06-10, 13.3 cfs decreed): last active 1974 — 51 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1985) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• WATTS SPRING C (5700634) DWR↗☆ (1925-06-01, 1.0 cfs decreed): last active 1974 — 51 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1985) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• FOX SPRING 1 (5700644) DWR↗☆ (1905-06-14, 0.2 cfs decreed): last active 1974 — 51 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1985) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• TABB SPRING & PL (5700660) DWR↗☆ (1952-07-06, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1974 — 51 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1985) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• ESKRIDGE SPRING 1 (5700665) DWR↗☆ (1970-10-08, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1974 — 51 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1985) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• BIG SPRING (5700666) DWR↗☆ (1915-06-01, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1974 — 51 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1985) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• MATHEWS SPRING (5700669) DWR↗☆ (1933-05-12, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1974 — 51 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1985) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
• MCKUNE SPRING 1 (5700670) DWR↗☆ (1951-07-19, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1974 — 51 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1985) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse

Compliance screens (100 advisory flags)

Screened 160 of 1003 structures with rights (217 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.

• GIBRALTAR DITCH (5700539) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 90.0 cfs (max 340.6) exceeds total decreed absolute 70.0 cfs across 28831 recorded day(s).
• SHELTON DITCH (5700592) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 56.0 cfs (max 80.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 53.5 cfs across 32642 recorded day(s).
• WALKER IRRIG DITCH (5700611) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 48.0 cfs (max 55.7) exceeds total decreed absolute 42.7 cfs across 35764 recorded day(s).
• CARY DITCH COMPANY IRRIGATING DITCH (5700510) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 41.2 cfs (max 48.2) exceeds total decreed absolute 29.0 cfs across 26302 recorded day(s).
• MARSHALL ROBERTS DITCH (5700563) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 34.1 cfs (max 80.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 19.2 cfs across 25557 recorded day(s).
• BROCK DITCH (5700508) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 27.0 cfs (max 37.6) exceeds total decreed absolute 21.5 cfs across 25152 recorded day(s).
• WILLIAMS IRRIG DITCH (5700622) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 23.8 cfs (max 34.2) exceeds total decreed absolute 19.4 cfs across 28364 recorded day(s).
• TROUT CREEK DITCH 3 (5700608) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 19.2 cfs (max 25.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 12.7 cfs across 17767 recorded day(s).
• KOLL DITCH (5700635) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 17.3 cfs (max 19.9) exceeds total decreed absolute 13.2 cfs across 18555 recorded day(s).
• R E CLARK DITCH (5700579) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 16.0 cfs (max 50.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 12.4 cfs across 12944 recorded day(s).

Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)

Recent inventory & legal-document changes

• 2026-10-30 — call set: H E TURNER DITCH (39819)
• 2026-10-30 — call released: 39206
• 2026-10-29 — call released: 39487
• 2026-10-28 — call released: 39682
• 2026-10-24 — call released: 39558
• 2026-10-24 — call released: 39220
• 2026-10-20 — call released: 39597
• 2026-10-14 — call released: 36993

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 (24 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 2026-11-04 · verify at USGS current conditions ↗

No USGS continuous water-quality sensor reports from inside this district. Statewide sensors →

Where water has been sampled

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

The portal lists 1,596 sampling stations in this district's watershed (Upper Yampa 14050001), of which 100 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: Colorado Dept. of Public Health & Environment-WQCD (44), USGS Colorado Water Science Center (25), Colorado River Watch (17). 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 ↗

2 community systems touch this district. None carries an open health-based violation on EPA's record. EPA sampled 1 of them for PFAS in 2023–25; none had PFOA or PFOS at or above the 2024 limit.

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.