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HAYDEN RESERVOIR

Structure dossier · WDID 1503695 · RESERVOIR · GREENHORN CREEK · DWR record

Hayden Reservoir is a reservoir on Greenhorn 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 08:00 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.

In short

HAYDEN RESERVOIR holds 1 decreed right on GREENHORN CREEK. No active call senior to its rights reaches its district today (20 active calls checked), so it is in priority now. 13 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 15 recorded years it diverts 1,456 acre-feet.

Assembled from the figures on this page — every number above is checked against them before it is shown (5 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.

Current administration

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

13 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: 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 1905-06-08 — 120th most senior of the 704 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: ST CHARLES RES NO 3 (1900-03-01). Immediately behind: WINSLOW SPRING NO 2 (1905-12-31).

On GREENHORN CREEK at river mile 6.4, it is 223rd of 560 down the reach. Immediately upstream: 1514176. Immediately downstream: 1513424.

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 (1)

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
20247.00000 1905-06-081929-07-05 939.28 AF 0.0 — Irrigation R8

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 1,456 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 1,456 AF — 100% of that, and 8th 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)
2011 791 2nd lowest of 15 · 54% of median 324 365 8.6
2012 1,314 5th lowest of 15 · 90% of median — 366 7.4
2013 1,468 9th lowest of 15 · 101% of median 82 365 6.2
2014 1,983 14th lowest of 15 · 136% of median 467 365 8.0
2015 1,293 4th lowest of 15 · 89% of median 352 365 4.9
2016 616 1st lowest of 15 · 42% of median 423 366 3.3
2017 2,256 15th lowest of 15 · 155% of median 494 365 19.0
2018 1,429 7th lowest of 15 · 98% of median 496 365 4.6
2019 1,796 13th lowest of 15 · 123% of median 532 365 8.6
2020 1,092 3rd lowest of 15 · 75% of median 613 366 3.9
2021 1,690 12th lowest of 15 · 116% of median 630 365 3.9
2022 1,329 6th lowest of 15 · 91% of median 467 365 5.0
2023 1,505 10th lowest of 15 · 103% of median 505 365 3.5
2024 1,632 11th lowest of 15 · 112% of median 494 366 3.9
2025 1,456 8th lowest of 15 · 100% of median 380 304 3.9

How good is our record of it?

Grade B (8/10 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 1 right(s), seniority decoded
diversion record current 5481 measured days, newest 331 day(s) before the data's end (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears)
record continuity sparse 38% of the irrigation seasons in 1957-2025 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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