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RATCLIFF SPRING CREEK D
Structure dossier · WDID 0801238 · DITCH · SPRING CREEK · DWR record
Where this page's figures come from
Generated 2026-08-28 01:48 by Hydrohistorian. Sources: DWR HydroBase snapshot HydroBase_CO_20260707 (history) + CDSS REST (current), USGS NWIS cross-checks. Engine v0.5.0 (0576005) — every figure regenerates from this named code version and data image.
Where it sits
Location as DWR records it. Faint dots are the neighbouring water; click any to open it.
Current administration
● Junior rights called out — call at LAST CHANCE DITCH 2 (SOUTH PLATTE RIVER, priority 1863-12-30).
● Junior rights called out — call at NEVADA DITCH (SOUTH PLATTE RIVER, priority 1865-12-30).
Which of its rights are out of priority?
Not computable for this structure: this structure is not on the modelled flow network, so no reference gage can honestly stand in for it.
Where it sits in line
Priority 1862-06-01 — 93rd most senior of the 21881 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: 0801237 (1862-06-01). Immediately behind: PLATTEVILLE DITCH (1862-07-01).
Decreed rights (3)
| 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. | Units | UsesWhat the court said this water may be used for -- irrigation, municipal supply, augmentation and so on. | Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4535.0 | 1862-06-01 | 1883-12-10 | 0.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR | |
| 7822.0 | 1871-06-01 | 1883-12-10 | 5.41 | 0.0 | C | IRR | |
| 10043.0 | 1877-06-30 | 1883-12-10 | 1.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR |
Legal record & documents
3 decreed actions on record across
2 court cases:
W8008, 12/10/1883.
Every case, dated
| Case | Actions | Latest adjudication | Types |
|---|---|---|---|
W8008 | 1 | 1883-12-10 | O |
12/10/1883 | 2 | 1883-12-10 | O |
DWR's own records for this structure: net amounts · transactions & adjudication history · scanned decrees (search a case number there for the imaged document). On this site: the district's full legal picture →
Recorded use (last 15 years on record)
In a median year this structure has a recorded diversion of 232 AF. Its most recent year on record, 1998, came in at 208 AF — 90% of that, and 6th lowest of the 15 years with a recorded volume.
| Year | Diverted (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 record | Days recorded | Peak (cfs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | 321 | 11th lowest of 15 · 138% of median | 61 | 4.0 |
| 1973 | 417 | 13th lowest of 15 · 180% of median | 65 | 5.0 |
| 1974 | 976 | 15th lowest of 15 · 421% of median | 113 | 6.0 |
| 1975 | 581 | 14th lowest of 15 · 250% of median | 99 | 5.0 |
| 1976 | 51 | 2nd lowest of 15 · 22% of median | 27 | 1.5 |
| 1977 | 218 | 7th lowest of 15 · 94% of median | 80 | 1.5 |
| 1978 | 128 | 5th lowest of 15 · 55% of median | 59 | 1.5 |
| 1979 | 413 | 12th lowest of 15 · 178% of median | 113 | 2.0 |
| 1980 | 280 | 9th lowest of 15 · 121% of median | 72 | 2.5 |
| 1981 | 232 | 8th lowest of 15 · 100% of median | 102 | 1.5 |
| 1983 | 48 | 1st lowest of 15 · 21% of median | 27 | 1.0 |
| 1984 | 293 | 10th lowest of 15 · 126% of median | 79 | 2.0 |
| 1987 | 111 | 4th lowest of 15 · 48% of median | 60 | 1.0 |
| 1988 | 109 | 3rd lowest of 15 · 47% of median | 75 | 1.0 |
| 1998 | 208 | 6th lowest of 15 · 90% of median | 71 | 1.5 |
Trends for this structure
Recorded use is falling over its last 15 recorded years (-16 AF/yr, Mann-Kendall p=0.048).
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
| Check | State | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| identity | complete | name, type, and water source all on file |
| decreed rights | on file | 3 right(s), seniority decoded |
| diversion record | present | 1198 measured days; currency unknown (no data-coverage date to compare against) |
| record continuity | sparse | 20% of the irrigation seasons in 1970-1998 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.