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HORSE CREEK RES

Structure dossier · WDID 0103592 · RESERVOIR · HORSE CREEK · DWR record

Horse Creek Res is a reservoir on Horse Creek in Colorado. This page is its public record: the water it has a right to, whether it may take it today, and its history, compiled from the Colorado Division of Water Resources.

Source DWR administrative record · verify at DWR structure ↗ Source DWR administrative record · verify at DWR diversion records ↗ Source Our computation, scored against a reference · scored against DWR's call analysis, see /methods

Where this page's figures come from

Generated 2026-10-14 05:20 by Hydrohistorian. Sources: DWR HydroBase snapshot HydroBase_CO_20260928 (history) + CDSS REST (current), USGS NWIS cross-checks. Engine v0.5.0 (dd58e60) — every figure regenerates from this named code version and data image.

Who owns it

DWR’s own records name no owner for a ditch, reservoir or well, so this comes from the source shown and can be out of date. Organisations only: a private landowner’s name is never listed.

In short

HORSE CREEK RES holds 4 decreed rights on HORSE CREEK. No active call senior to its rights reaches its district today (20 active calls checked), so it is in priority now. 4 further calls state no district and sit outside this one, so they are counted here rather than assumed either way. That is today's position; the weeks ahead cannot be projected for it: this structure is not on the modelled flow network, so no reference gage can honestly stand in for it. In a median year over its last 13 recorded years it diverts 15,973 acre-feet. It was a party to 2 court cases that also touched 3 other structures.

Assembled from the figures on this page — every number above is checked against them before it is shown (7 checked). The detail, with its method, is in the cards below.

Download this structure

Everything on this page as data you can work with — and a README that makes it citable: the HydroBase snapshot it was built from, the build commit, what every column means, the method behind each derived figure, and that method's stated limits.

⇩ Full record (.zip) Print / save as PDF

Or one table at a time: rights.csv · annual_use.csv · curtailment_now.csv · court_cases.csv · co_parties.csv · call_climatology.csv

What is in the bundle
  • rights.csv — every decreed right, most senior first, with admin numbers, dates, amounts, uses and case numbers.
  • annual_use.csv — recorded diversion by year, with releases accounted separately.
  • curtailment_now.csv — each right's current priority status and how often it was out across analog years.
  • court_cases.csv — the cases attached to its rights.
  • co_parties.csv — the other structures that were parties to those cases. Not available anywhere else.
  • call_climatology.csv — how often each right has been out of priority by week of season, with confidence intervals and the seasons the record could actually judge.
  • README.txt — provenance, methods, limits, disclaimer, and links back to DWR's own records for verification.

Where it sits

Location as DWR records it (storage). Faint dots are the neighbouring water; click any to open it.

Dam safety

Dam HORSE CREEK (completed 1910)
Hazard class High
Condition at last inspection Satisfactory (2026-07-09)
Storage restriction None on file
Normal storage 15,537 AF
Physical status Active
Emergency action plan Yes

Source: DWR Dam Safety’s jurisdictional-dam inventory (damsafety/damsafetydaminfojd), refreshed weekly. Joined on this structure’s own WDID as DWR records it on the dam. Hazard class describes the consequence of failure, not the likelihood of it. DWR’s dam record.

Current administration

● In priority — no active call senior to this structure's rights affects its district (20 active call(s) checked).

4 further calls state no district and sit outside this one, so they are counted here rather than assumed either way.

Which of its rights are out of priority?

The outlook for the weeks ahead is not computable for this structure: this structure is not on the modelled flow network, so no reference gage can honestly stand in for it. Today’s position is a separate question, and it is answered in Current administration above — that screen reads the district’s active calls and needs no reference gage.

Where it sits in line

Priority 1911-03-17 — 569th most senior of the 7708 structures with decreed rights in this water districtDWR's administrative subdivision of a river basin; the unit calls are usually stated in..

Under prior appropriationColorado's rule for sharing water: first in time, first in right. Age decides, not proximity or need., everything ahead of it in this line is satisfied in full before it receives any water. Immediately ahead: WILLIAMS WELL 45993 (1910-12-31). Immediately behind: HANSEN WELL NO 16368 (1911-07-11).

Decreed rights (4)

Admin noDWR's numeric encoding of a water right's seniority. Smaller is more senior; the integer part counts days from 1849-12-31 to the date that ranks the right. AppropriatedWhen water was first put to beneficial use. It sets seniority unless a prior adjudication date is later. AdjudicatedWhen the water court confirmed the right. A use decreed in 1975 was not a decreed use in 1955, however old the appropriation is. AbsoluteA right actually put to use, as opposed to conditional -- a placeholder for a use not yet made. ConditionalA right reserving a place in line for a use not yet made; it must be diligently pursued or it lapses. Alt-pointAn absolute amount decreed at another structure that may be diverted here instead -- an alternate point of diversion or an exchange. DWR calls this the APEX amount; a right showing 0.0 absolute but an alt-point amount is exercised here under another structure's decree. Decreed forWhat the court said this water may be used for -- irrigation, municipal supply, augmentation and so on.Case
22355.00000 1911-03-171918-08-02 16965.1 AF 0.0 — Irrigation CA54658
26302.21292 1908-04-181936-01-13 729.0 AF 0.0 — Irrigation CA8492
26498.00000 1922-07-201924-11-12 0.0 AF 2550.0 AF — Irrigation CA54658
55668.00000 2002-05-312002-12-31 0.0 AF 0.0 9742.0 AF Irrigation 02CW0105A, 12CW0306

Amounts marked cfs are flow rates; AF are stored volumes (storage rights are decreed in acre-feet). An absolute amount of 0.0 beside an alt-point amount is not a dead right: the water is decreed at another structure, and that row records permission to divert it here instead (an alternate point or exchange). A case listing several numbers reflects the original decree plus later change cases.

Recorded use (last 15 years on record)

Years far under the decreed amount? That gap has a name — paper water vs. wet water, explained on this structure.

In a median year this structure has a recorded diversion of 15,973 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 15,973 AF — 100% of that, and 7th lowest of the 13 years with a recorded volume.

This structure records both diversions and reservoir releases — they are separate water movements and are accounted separately below.

YearDiverted (AFA volume: one acre covered a foot deep, about 326,000 gallons -- roughly a suburban household's outdoor use for a year.)Compared with its own recordReleased (AF)Days recordedPeak (cfs)
2010 — no recorded volume 35,211 0 —
2011 — no recorded volume 25,129 0 —
2012 8,456 3rd lowest of 13 · 53% of median 23,425 40 315.3
2013 20,450 8th lowest of 13 · 128% of median 175 94 272.8
2014 13,414 6th lowest of 13 · 84% of median 55,124 106 492.6
2015 6,527 2nd lowest of 13 · 41% of median 40,643 71 255.4
2016 9,073 4th lowest of 13 · 57% of median 34,702 97 183.2
2017 42,976 13th lowest of 13 · 269% of median 37,468 259 338.4
2018 3,439 1st lowest of 13 · 22% of median 28,323 20 185.8
2019 40,289 12th lowest of 13 · 252% of median 40,069 212 282.1
2020 27,815 10th lowest of 13 · 174% of median 27,878 138 259.1
2022 10,632 5th lowest of 13 · 67% of median 14,492 63 196.2
2023 24,371 9th lowest of 13 · 153% of median 19,676 129 270.3
2024 37,916 11th lowest of 13 · 237% of median 40,922 366 263.8
2025 15,973 7th lowest of 13 · 100% of median 15,577 296 225.6

How good is our record of it?

Grade B (7/10 points) — the components below are the finding; the letter alone is not.

The rubric, component by component
CheckStateDetail
identity complete name, type, and water source all on file
decreed rights on file 4 right(s), seniority decoded
diversion record present 1891 measured days; currency unknown (no data-coverage date to compare against)
record continuity sparse 25% of the irrigation seasons in 1989-2025 carry measured days
published-record stability stable no upstream revisions recorded against this structure

Advisory reading aid on public data — not an administrative or legal conclusion, not a title opinion, and not a substitute for DWR administration or an engineer's analysis. Methodology review status is disclosed at hydrohistorian's basin pages.

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