Hydrohistorian
Designated groundwater basins
East of the mountains, eight basins of groundwater that the 1965 Ground
Water Management Act put outside the priority system. The Colorado
Ground Water Commission designates them, permits large wells in them,
and hears the disputes; thirteen local management districts write the
finer rules. Nothing here is administered by the division engineers'
calls.
Boundaries from the CDSS Designated_Basins and Groundwater_Management_Districts layers. Click a basin for its dates. Permit counts: 76,959 permits name a designated basin in DWR's statewide permit file.
The eight basins
Northern High Plains
Designated 1966-05-13, amended 1967-09-15 · 9,293 square miles
29,136 permits name this basin
Residential: 15,677General Purpose: 5,575Final Permit: 4,697Unknown: 1,522Monitoring Hole (Notice of Intent): 630Colorado Water Conservation Board: 460
Upper Black Squirrel Creek
Designated 1968-04-26 · 349 square miles
12,097 permits name this basin
Residential: 8,307General Purpose: 1,209Basin Determination: 1,035Unknown: 786Final Permit: 180Monitoring Hole (Notice of Intent): 167
Southern High Plains
Designated 1967-09-15 · 2,506 square miles
5,784 permits name this basin
Residential: 1,767General Purpose: 1,575Final Permit: 1,374Unknown: 421Monitoring Hole (Notice of Intent): 251Colorado Water Conservation Board: 177
Lost Creek
Designated 1968-04-26 · 433 square miles
5,519 permits name this basin
Residential: 2,544General Purpose: 596Monitoring/Observation: 502Final Permit: 471Unknown: 442Basin Determination: 388
Upper Big Sandy
Designated 1972-12-08, amended 1994-11-08 · 441 square miles
2,742 permits name this basin
Residential: 1,795Monitoring/Observation: 212Unknown: 175Monitoring Hole (Notice of Intent): 156General Purpose: 128Final Permit: 124
Upper Crow Creek
Designated 1987-02-20 · 259 square miles
1,025 permits name this basin
Residential: 351General Purpose: 215Final Permit: 133Unknown: 89Monitoring/Observation: 83Monitoring Hole (Notice of Intent): 82
Camp Creek
Designated 1968-05-13 · 180 square miles
654 permits name this basin
Residential: 478Final Permit: 52General Purpose: 33Colorado Water Conservation Board: 32Monitoring Hole (Notice of Intent): 23Unknown: 18
Kiowa Bijou
Designated 1966-02-11 · 2,096 square miles
0 permits name this basin
Management districts
| District | Designation | Formed | Permits naming it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central Yuma | 1-5 | 1967-05-22 | 4,524 |
| Marks Butte | 1-11 | 1977-08-05 | 759 |
| Frenchman | 1-4 | 1967-05-22 | 3,541 |
| W-Y | 1-6 | 1967-05-22 | 0 |
| Sand Hills | 1-2 | 1966-12-09 | 2,428 |
| Plains | 1-1 | 1967-01-27 | 5,027 |
| East Cheyenne | 1-8 | 1973-05-24 | 1,088 |
| Southern High Plains | 3-10 | 1974-08-16 | 3,519 |
| Upper Black Squirrel Creek | 4-12 | 1979-12-04 | 0 |
| North Kiowa Bijou | 2-7 | 1967-03-27 | 0 |
| Lost Creek | 5-9 | 1974-02-08 | 5,029 |
| Arikaree | 1-3 | 1967-12-13 | 5,739 |
| Big Sandy | 7-13 | 1976-10-22 | 0 |
The rules, and where the decisions are
- Ground Water Management Act, CRS 37-90
- Designated Basin Rules, 2 CCR 410-1
- Procedural rules of the Ground Water Commission, 2 CCR 410-2
- Ground Water Commission meetings and hearings
- DWR's Denver Basin tools (allowed withdrawals by location)
The Commission's dockets and decisions are PDFs behind a file browser and are not machine-readable; this page links to them and does not summarise them. Allowed annual withdrawals in the Denver Basin are a per-location determination DWR's tools compute; no number is given here. Built 2026-11-01. Report a problem →