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BOUSTEAD TUNNEL OUTLET

Structure dossier · WDID 1104615 · DITCH · LAKE FORK · DWR record

Boustead Tunnel Outlet is a ditch on Lake Fork 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 2026-10-17 05:00 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DWR’s own records name no owner for a ditch, reservoir or well, so this comes from the source shown and can be out of date.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

This is water crossing the divide

Boustead Tunnel Outlet is the receiving end of the Charles H. Boustead Tunnel (tunnel). It takes water from Fryingpan River and Hunter Creek collection (Div 5) and delivers it to Turquoise Lake, Arkansas River basin (Div 2). Water arriving here is an import: it was never in this basin’s own runoff.

The other end: Fry Ark Pr Boustead Tunnel 3804625

Metered as a facility: BOUTUNCO — the record for the crossing itself, which may run longer than the record for either structure.

Owner / operator: Southeastern Colorado WCD / USBR (Fryingpan-Arkansas)

From the site’s hand-curated register of transbasin facilities. Every crossing on one page →

Where this structure is measured

GageFlowing nowRecordHow we know
CHARLES H. BOUSTEAD TUNNEL BOUTUNCO 0.0 cfs 1971–2026, 20,081 days DWR telemetry mapping

A green link is DWR's own: either its telemetry inventory maps this WDID to that station, or the station is named for this WDID (0700553 → 0700553A). An amber one is ours — the station sits within 250 m and shares a distinctive word with this structure's name, which is a strong hint rather than a DWR statement that this gage meters this structure. Wrong? Tell us.

Flowing now

0.0 cfs as of 2026-10-17 02:15 (2.8 h ago)

Zero is a real reading: the gage is reporting, and it says this structure is not diverting right now.

Provisional 15-minute telemetry from BOUTUNCO ↗ (CHARLES H. BOUSTEAD TUNNEL). Raw, not the approved record — it is never merged into the diversion history below. DWR publishes the official diversion record after the water year closes and is approved, which is why that record ends months back while this reads minutes ago.

In short

In a median year over its last 15 recorded years it diverts 49,266 acre-feet.

Assembled from the figures on this page — every number above is checked against them before it is shown (2 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 (diversion). Faint dots are the neighbouring water; click any to open it.

Which of its rights are out of priority?

The outlook for the weeks ahead is not computable for this structure: no decreed right on file, so there is no priority to test.

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 49,266 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 2,893 AF — 6% of that, and 2nd lowest of the 15 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)
1978 49,266 8th lowest of 15 · 100% of median — 135 697.0
1979 54,151 10th lowest of 15 · 110% of median — 122 722.0
1980 55,660 11th lowest of 15 · 113% of median — 97 861.0
1981 34,527 6th lowest of 15 · 70% of median — 88 784.0
1982 75,520 13th lowest of 15 · 153% of median — 123 901.0
1983 87,505 14th lowest of 15 · 178% of median — 132 949.0
1986 31,387 3rd lowest of 15 · 64% of median — 90 752.0
2016 269 1st lowest of 15 · 0% of median 269 61 2.5
2017 69,587 12th lowest of 15 · 141% of median 69,587 365 943.0
2018 40,843 7th lowest of 15 · 83% of median 40,843 365 743.0
2019 96,851 15th lowest of 15 · 197% of median 96,851 365 951.0
2020 53,529 9th lowest of 15 · 109% of median 53,529 366 909.0
2021 34,410 5th lowest of 15 · 70% of median 34,410 365 775.0
2022 34,155 4th lowest of 15 · 69% of median 34,155 304 775.0
2025 2,893 2nd lowest of 15 · 6% of median 2,893 221 55.1

How good is our record of it?

Grade C (5/10 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 absent no water rights cached for this WDID
diversion record present 3861 measured days; currency unknown (no data-coverage date to compare against)
record continuity sparse 33% of the irrigation seasons in 1971-2025 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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