Hydrohistorian
Middle Yampa River on the ground — the ditches, wells, reservoirs and gages of Water District 57 · 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.
The Middle Creek is critically low for late September -- 21% of normal flow, its 10th-driest such week in 26 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.
Schematic
Historical
Evolution of the network
Trends
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.
How this comparison is made
Each gage's mean flow over the 3 days either side of 2001-09-30, 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 21:07 from 12 gage(s) with cached period-of-record data. The series is each gage's annual mean flow in cfs (years with ≥300 days of record). Mann-Kendall (trend, with the Hamed–Rao correction for serial correlation — persistence can otherwise fake significance) and Pettitt (changepoint) both require at least 8 years spanning at least 10 years of record. A gage below that reports no signal — which is not the same as “no change.” The %-per-decade figure is the same Sen slope divided by the gage's median annual flow, for comparing across streams of very different size; it is omitted for near-ephemeral channels where the median is too small to divide by honestly.
None of the 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 †.
| Decade | Gages with data (median yr) | Structures reporting (median yr) |
|---|---|---|
| 1900s | 0 | 1 |
| 1910s | 0 | 1 |
| 1930s | 0 | 60 |
| 1940s | 0 | 58 |
| 1950s | 0 | 50 |
| 1960s | 2 | 50 |
| 1970s | 4 | 68 |
| 1980s | 4 | 82 |
| 1990s | 3 | 84 |
| 2000s | 0 | 90 |
| 2010s | 0 | 124 |
| 2020s | 0 | 131 |
Mass-balance (network closure) trend
Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 13% of 422 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.
Data provenance & quality
Where these numbers come from and how far they can be trusted. Grade D (2/6 points) — the components below are the finding; the letter alone is not. Sources: DWR HydroBase snapshot HydroBase_CO_20260707 (imported 2026-08-19) for history, plus the CDSS REST API for current conditions.
| Check | State | What was measured |
|---|---|---|
| gage freshness | stale | newest gage reading is 9100 day(s) old (target 7) |
| diversion record | expected-lag | newest diversion record is 304 day(s) old (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears) |
| structure coverage | sparse | 13% of schematic structures have data |
Independent check: PASS — 100.0000% agreement across 193,010 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 — 100.00% day-level agreement with USGS's own published records for the same gages, across 12 co-listed station(s) and 52,805 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.
12 gage(s) / 52,816 daily values (1955-10-01–2001-09-30); 293 structure(s) with diversion records; 1003 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
1,311 water-level measurements across 129 monitored well(s) — 99 alluvial, 0 bedrock — plus 13 administered well(s) reporting metered pumping.
What is being counted
Observation wells and pumping wells are different populations and are never conflated: water levels come from monitored observation wells, and metered pumping comes from administered wells reporting through diversion records. Click any well to chart its own record.
Well map
3D aquifer x-ray
Every aquifer unit as its own head surface, animated through time.
How the surfaces are built, and what they are not
Alluvial water table on top, Denver Basin members (Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe, Laramie–Fox Hills) stacked beneath where measured, interpolated from measured water levels. Units are never mixed; a surface exists only inside its own unit's well coverage, with no extrapolation; thin epochs are suppressed and say why. Vertical scale is exaggerated for readability and z is head elevation in feet. These are measured heads, not a calibrated groundwater model.
Water-table trends
Of 0 well(s) with enough record for a trend test: 0 declining, 0 rising.
Wells labeled by administrative world before anything else is said about them: tributary alluvium participates in the priority system; designated-basin and Denver Basin bedrock aquifers are governed differently and are excluded from stream-connection reasoning. Read bedrock declines differently too: deep bedrock aquifers recharge negligibly on human timescales, so a falling bedrock level is storage mining — effectively permanent — not a drought response that a wet year undoes. All screens advisory.
Reservoirs
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).
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) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ▸ J C TEMPLE RES 1 (5703572) | 367 | 2025-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ HAYDEN RAW WATER RES (5703786) | 311 | 2015-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ SHERIFF RES (5703583) | 280 | 2025-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ WADGE PIT RES (5703793) | 172 | 2019-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ WOLF MOUNTAIN RES (5703516) | 138 | 2025-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ INTERMEDIATE QUALITY P (5704002) | 100 | 2015-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ SEDIMENTATION POND A (5703501) | 84 | 2025-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
| ▸ POND D (5703536) | 75 | 2014-10-31 | — | — | dossier → |
Drought
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 percentile for the date). On this week’s US Drought Monitor, Routt County is 33% in D4 exceptional drought (2026-09-01). The law agrees: the most senior active call leaves 80% 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.
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
| Drought | Span | Weeks | Trough percentile | Recovery |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| the 2002 drought | 2001-03-05 → 2001-09-10 | 27 | 26th (2001-03-19) | not yet |
| unnamed dry spell | 1992-05-25 → 1993-06-28 | 57 | 20th (1993-03-08) | 36 weeks |
| unnamed dry spell | 1990-07-30 → 1991-08-12 | 54 | 11th (1990-12-10) | 134 weeks |
| unnamed dry spell | 1989-09-18 → 1990-04-09 | 29 | 16th (1989-11-20) | 204 weeks |
| the 1981 drought | 1981-07-20 → 1982-06-28 | 49 | 16th (1981-09-21) | 7 weeks |
| the 1977 drought | 1976-12-20 → 1978-08-07 | 85 | 6th (1978-03-20) | 3 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 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.
Legal
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 18% 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 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.
- 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.
| Structure | Senior priority | Senior right: median / dry yr | Junior right: median / dry yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| GIBRALTAR DITCH (5700539) DWR↗ | 1888-03-18 | 17.6% / 5.6% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| SHELTON DITCH (5700592) DWR↗ | 1883-04-15 | 27.3% / 7.5% | 10.0% / 0.0% |
| WALKER IRRIG DITCH (5700611) DWR↗ | 1882-05-01 | 34.1% / 7.5% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| CARY DITCH COMPANY IRRIGATING DITCH (5700510) DWR↗ | 1887-11-07 | 17.6% / 5.6% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| COLORADO UTILITIES DITCH AND PIPELINE (5700856) DWR↗ | 1926-08-12 | 10.0% / 0.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| BROCK DITCH (5700508) DWR↗ | 1883-03-30 | 27.3% / 7.5% | 10.0% / 0.0% |
| WILLIAMS IRRIG DITCH (5700622) DWR↗ | 1881-10-20 | 100.0% / 100.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| RICH DITCH (5704629) DWR↗ | 1896-10-08 | 15.4% / 2.3% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| LAST CHANCE DITCH (5700555) DWR↗ | 1902-06-01 | 15.4% / 2.3% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| MARSHALL ROBERTS DITCH (5700563) DWR↗ | 1881-10-20 | 100.0% / 100.0% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| HOMESTEAD DITCH (5700545) DWR↗ | 1901-05-01 | 15.4% / 2.3% | 7.5% / 0.0% |
| CONNELL DITCH (5700513) DWR↗ | 1889-08-15 | 17.6% / 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 ~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)
| Structure | Senior priority date | Rights | Decreed abs (cfs) | Decreed abs (AF) | Conditional? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GIBRALTAR DITCH (5700539) DWR↗ | 1888-03-18 | 3 | 70.0 | 0 | — |
| SHELTON DITCH (5700592) DWR↗ | 1883-04-15 | 3 | 53.5 | 0 | — |
| WALKER IRRIG DITCH (5700611) DWR↗ | 1882-05-01 | 7 | 42.7 | 0 | — |
| CARY DITCH COMPANY IRRIGATING DITCH (5700510) DWR↗ | 1887-11-07 | 3 | 29.0 | 0 | — |
| COLORADO UTILITIES DITCH AND PIPELINE (5700856) DWR↗ | 1926-08-12 | 4 | 27.0 | 0 | — |
| BROCK DITCH (5700508) DWR↗ | 1883-03-30 | 6 | 21.5 | 0 | — |
| WILLIAMS IRRIG DITCH (5700622) DWR↗ | 1881-10-20 | 7 | 19.4 | 0 | — |
| RICH DITCH (5704629) DWR↗ | 1896-10-08 | 6 | 19.3 | 0 | — |
| LAST CHANCE DITCH (5700555) DWR↗ | 1902-06-01 | 6 | 19.3 | 0 | — |
| MARSHALL ROBERTS DITCH (5700563) DWR↗ | 1881-10-20 | 5 | 19.2 | 0 | — |
| HOMESTEAD DITCH (5700545) DWR↗ | 1901-05-01 | 4 | 15.9 | 0 | — |
| CONNELL DITCH (5700513) DWR↗ | 1889-08-15 | 2 | 15.7 | 0 | — |
| HIGHLAND DITCH (5700544) DWR↗ | 1889-09-13 | 2 | 15.7 | 0 | — |
| DENNIS & BLEWITT DITCH (5700519) DWR↗ | 1888-11-14 | 4 | 14.7 | 0 | yes |
| ECKMAN PARK DITCH 1 (5700529) DWR↗ | 1905-06-10 | 1 | 13.3 | 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
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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
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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… |
Call cascade
If a call were placed at a given seniority, which structures in this basin would be out of priority, and how much of their decreed rate would be curtailed? Computed from this basin's cached decrees.
What this does and doesn't model. Seniority arithmetic only: every right junior to the call is treated as curtailed. It does not model reach applicability — structures downstream of the calling point are not administered by it — and it applies no futile-call judgment. Read it as “who is junior to this date, and by how much,” not as a prediction of what the Division Engineer would actually order.
Pick a calling right
Real decrees from this basin, ordered by administration number — that is, by actual seniority. The years will look out of order, and that is correct: an administration number encodes the adjudication date as well as the appropriation date, so a right appropriated in 1970 can be administered ahead of one from 1950. A senior call curtails almost everything; a junior one curtails almost nothing.
Or enter an administration number directly
DWR administration numbers encode appropriation and adjudication dates; lower is more senior.
Topology cross-check: 9 parent disagreements, 2 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 16 streams, 7 agree. Know this water? Tell us →
| Stream | This site routes it to | DWR routes it to |
|---|---|---|
| Butcherknife Gulch | the mainstem | Yampa River |
| Cheney Creek | the mainstem | Yampa River |
| Tow Creek | the mainstem | Yampa River |
| Matt Creek | the mainstem | Morgan Creek |
| Wolf Creek | the mainstem | Yampa River |
| Foidel Creek | the mainstem | Middle Creek |
| Milner Spring Creek | the mainstem | nan |
| West Fish Creek | the mainstem | Fish Creek |
Sizable streams DWR maps here that this network does not carry:
Fish Creek (37 mi) · Dry Creek (5 mi)