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MANITOU RESERVOIR

Structure dossier · WDID 1003657 · RESERVOIR · FRENCH CREEK · DWR record

Manitou Reservoir is a reservoir on French 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 10:01 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DWR’s own records name no owner for a ditch, reservoir or well, so this comes from the source shown and can be out of date.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.

The record and the river

In short

MANITOU RESERVOIR holds 3 decreed rights on FRENCH CREEK. No active call senior to its rights reaches its district today (20 active calls checked), so it is in priority now. 14 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: the call record covers no complete season at this date. In a median year over its last 13 recorded years it diverts 34 acre-feet. It was a party to 1 court cases that also touched 4 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 MANITOU (completed 1971)
Hazard class High
Condition at last inspection Conditionally Satisfactory (2026-05-27)
Storage restriction None on file
Normal storage 700 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).

14 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: the call record covers no complete season at this date. 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 1912-03-26 — 183rd most senior of the 2872 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: BOHART RANCH WELL NO 15 (1912-02-21). Immediately behind: MONUMENT WELL NO 1 (1912-12-31).

On FRENCH CREEK at river mile 73.4, it is 2nd of 5 down the reach. Immediately upstream: MANITOU PIPELINE. Immediately downstream: MANITOU WW PIPELINE "A".

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 (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
22730.00000 1912-03-261919-06-02 710.8861 AF 0.0 — Irrigation, Municipal 131A, R54
56927.00000 2005-11-102008-12-31 0.0 cfs 0.0 4.55 cfs Storage, Municipal 08CW0061
57708.56927 2005-11-102008-12-31 0.0 AF 0.0 300.0 AF Storage, Municipal 08CW0061, 18CW3047
57708.56927 2005-11-102008-12-31 0.0 cfs 0.0 7.45 cfs Storage, Municipal 08CW0061, 18CW3047

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 13 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 34 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 34 AF — 100% of that, and 5th lowest of the 13 years with a recorded volume.

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 recordDays recordedPeak (cfs)
2013 1 1st lowest of 13 · 3% of median 30 0.0
2014 36 10th lowest of 13 · 106% of median 273 2.4
2015 35 8th lowest of 13 · 103% of median 275 0.7
2016 33 3rd lowest of 13 · 97% of median 244 1.5
2017 41 12th lowest of 13 · 121% of median 276 3.0
2018 81 13th lowest of 13 · 238% of median 365 4.4
2019 37 11th lowest of 13 · 109% of median 365 1.6
2020 33 3rd lowest of 13 · 97% of median 245 2.6
2021 35 8th lowest of 13 · 103% of median 365 2.2
2022 34 5th lowest of 13 · 100% of median 365 2.5
2023 1 1st lowest of 13 · 3% of median 365 0.2
2024 34 5th lowest of 13 · 100% of median 366 5.0
2025 34 5th lowest of 13 · 100% of median 304 1.5

How good is our record of it?

Grade A (10/10 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 current 3838 measured days, newest 331 day(s) before the data's end (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears)
record continuity continuous 100% of the irrigation seasons in 2013-2025 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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