Hydrohistorian
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Tarbell Ditch near Cochetopa Pass
Transbasin diversion gage · TARBELCO · USGS 09118200 · Division 3 · Water District 26 · Saguache County
Live gage at DWR ↗ · USGS monitoring location ↗ · Download daily record (CSV)
Source DWR administrative record · verify at DWR station ↗ Source Independent agency measurement · verify at USGS ↗ Source Our computation, no independent reference · computed here from the screened record
What this gage meters
This is not a natural stream record. The Tarbell Ditch moves water from Cochetopa Creek, Gunnison basin at Cochetopa Pass (Div 4) into Saguache Creek, Rio Grande basin (Div 3) — so this record is a ledger of those deliveries. Trends here reflect operational and demand decisions, not the basin's hydrology, and the basin trends page marks it accordingly (⇆). All of Colorado's curated transbasin diversions are collected at /transbasin.
The record
Readings come from the weekly-refreshed cache, never fetched live — the date beside the value says exactly how fresh it is. The live gage is one click up.
Annual flow & trend
Chart: annual mean flow at Tarbell Ditch near Cochetopa Pass, water years 1949 to 2026. The measured record is no trend at 0.03 cubic feet per second per decade. The underlying yearly values are available as a CSV download linked at the top of this page.
This gage measures the Tarbell Ditch, water carried across the Continental Divide. It is taken from Cochetopa Creek, Gunnison basin at Cochetopa Pass (Div 4) and delivered to Saguache Creek, Rio Grande basin (Div 3) — so what this gage reads leaves one river basin for good and arrives in another.
The two ends: Tarbell Ditch (source, on Cochetopa Creek); Tarbell Tmd (receiving, on Cochetopa Creek)
- Decree in case CA1602 ↗ · imaged 2005-10-31 · filed under the source end, Tarbell Ditch
The ditch’s mapped channel is drawn on the map below where the USGS has surveyed it. Every crossing →
Where it sits
Location as DWR records it (5.0).
Provenance
DWR station abbreviation TARBELCO; recorded station name “TARBELL DITCH NEAR COCHETOPA PASS”; operated by DWR. Daily flows from the DWR HydroBase snapshot plus CDSS REST updates, refreshed on the weekly cycle. Trend statistics are Mann-Kendall (Hamed-Rao corrected) with Sen's slope in native cfs, the same numbers as the basin Trends tab.