RALSTON RES ☆ My Water

Who owns it

• Denver Board of Water Commissioners (public utility) — as reported to the National Inventory of Dams (USACE) ↗.

DWR’s own records name no owner for a ditch, reservoir or well, so this comes from the source shown and can be out of date.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.

The record and the river

In short

RALSTON RES holds 30 decreed rights on RALSTON CREEK. A call at WANNAMAKER DITCH on CLEAR CREEK (1870-05-23), and 1 other currently reaches it: junior rights called out. 7 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: no gage record for this year at this date, so there is nothing to find analogs for. In a median year over its last 7 recorded years it diverts 43,773 acre-feet. It was a party to 1 court cases that also touched 1 other structures.

Assembled from the figures on this page — every number above is checked against them before it is shown (8 checked). The detail, with its method, is in the cards below.

Dam safety

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

● Junior rights called out — call at WANNAMAKER DITCH (CLEAR CREEK, priority 1870-05-23).

● Junior rights called out — call at BLUNN RES (RALSTON CREEK, priority 1861-06-05).

Which of its rights are out of priority?

The outlook for the weeks ahead is not computable for this structure: no gage record for this year at this date, so there is nothing to find analogs for. 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 1860-05-16 — 31st most senior of the 1815 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: BLUNN RES (1860-05-16)☆. Immediately behind: WELCH DITCH (1860-05-19)☆.

On RALSTON CREEK at river mile 45.5, it is 4th of 24 down the reach. Immediately upstream: LONG LAKE DITCH☆. Immediately downstream: RALSTON-CLEAR CREEK CANAL☆.

Position on the modelled network, not a claim about whose water this is — a stream carries water from many rights at once, and diverted water returns to it.

Decreed rights (30)

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.

Legal record & documents

35 decreed actions on record across 3 court cases: W7561, CA12111, 89CW0099.

220 imaged documents on DWR’s shelf for this structure — 81 water-court documents across 15 cases, including 15 decrees. Every row opens the scanned PDF at DWR. Listing as of 2026-09-05.

Imaged documents at DWR. DWR keeps the scanned documents for this structure — decrees, rulings, plats, correspondence — in its Laserfiche archive. Open the list directly: imaged documents for 0703324 ↗ (indexed by structure, not by case — the cases listed above appear within the list).

Other DWR records for this structure: DWR’s page for this structure ↗ — net amounts, water rights, transactions & adjudication history, and diversion records, all on that one page. On this site: the district’s full legal picture →

How often is it out of priority?

Across the 11 seasons whose call record is complete enough to judge this structure (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026), week by week from April.

Structures it shares court cases with

This structure was a party to 1 court case that also touched 1 other structure — changes of water right, augmentation plans, exchanges. Being parties to the same case does not by itself mean water moved between them; which way it ran, and how much, is in the decree.

Also a party to 1 omnibus adjudication (89CW0099, 17 structures). Those settled many rights at once and are listed separately: they say these structures were adjudicated together, not that they deal with each other.

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 43,773 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 43,059 AF — 98% of that, and 3rd lowest of the 7 years with a recorded volume.

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

Trends for this structure

Its reference gage, Ralston-Clear Creek Canal: no clear flow trend.

Every gage and reach in this district →

How good is our record of it?

Grade B (8/10 points) — the components below are the finding; the letter alone is not.