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WALSENBURG RESERVOIR

Structure dossier · WDID 1603724 · RESERVOIR · CUCHARAS RIVER · DWR record

Walsenburg Reservoir is a reservoir on Cucharas River 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 06:45 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DWR’s own records name no owner for a ditch, reservoir or well, so this comes from the source shown and can be out of date.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

Where this structure is measured

GageFlowing nowRecordHow we know
CITY OF WALSENBURG CITY LAKE OUTFLOW WCLOUTCO 0.0 cfs 2009–2026, 5,200 days co-located, 67 m
WALSENBURG RESERVOIR WCLRESCO — — co-located, 96 m

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.

In short

WALSENBURG RESERVOIR holds 4 decreed rights on CUCHARAS RIVER. A call at DURAN DITCH on CUCHARAS RIVER (1871-06-12) currently reaches it: junior rights called out. 19 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 149 acre-feet. It was a party to 2 court cases that also touched 6 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 WALSENBURG CITY LAKE (completed 2019)
Hazard class High
Condition at last inspection Conditionally Satisfactory (2026-06-09)
Storage restriction None on file
Normal storage 686 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

● Junior rights called out — call at DURAN DITCH (CUCHARAS RIVER, priority 1871-06-12).

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 1868-06-08 — 54th most senior of the 1045 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: LAKE OEHM RESERVOIR (COLER SYSTEM OUTLET (1868-06-08). Immediately behind: CULLOM DITCH (1868-06-10).

On MAINSTEM at river mile 75.0, it is 508th of 509 down the reach. Immediately upstream: LAKE OEHM RESERVOIR (COLER SYSTEM OUTLET. Immediately downstream: CITY LAKE INLET.

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 (5)

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
6734.00000 1868-06-081889-06-12 0.0 cfs 0.0 0.5334 cfs Storage, Municipal +1 10
14408.13980 1888-04-101898-02-23 0.0 cfs 0.0 1.167 cfs Storage, Municipal +1 124
19845.00000 1904-05-021921-10-03 411.4646 AF 0.0 — Municipal 329
62050.00000 2019-11-202019-12-31 0.0 AF 275.0 AF — All beneficial uses 19CW3070
62050.00000 2019-11-202019-12-31 0.0 cfs 51.9 cfs — All beneficial uses 19CW3070

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.

How often is it out of priority?

Across the 1 season whose call record is complete enough to judge this structure (2004), week by week from April. Read these as counts, not rates — 1 seasons is a short record.

most senior right · admin 6734.00000 · never out of priority in these seasons
AprMayJunJulAugSep
middle right · admin 19845.00000 · never out of priority in these seasons
AprMayJunJulAugSep
most junior right · admin 62050.00000 · never out of priority in these seasons
AprMayJunJulAugSep
Why only 1 seasons, and what the bars mean

Each bar is one week: how many of those seasons that right was out of priority under a call this site can lawfully attribute to this structure. Green is never, red is every season on record.

The short record is a property of DWR's data, not of the river. A call only counts against a structure when we can establish it applies — by the districts named in its set comments, or by stream mile on the same source. DWR did not begin stating affected districts routinely until about 2015: fewer than one call in ten can be judged before then, against roughly two in three since. A season we cannot judge is not a season without calls, so it is dropped rather than counted as quiet — 22 seasons dropped here.

This is a frequency over past seasons, not a forecast. It says nothing about what the division engineer will do this year.

Recorded use (last 7 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 149 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 35 AF — 24% of that, and 2nd 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.

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)
1924 555 5th lowest of 7 · 372% of median — 41 7.0
1946 1,150 6th lowest of 7 · 772% of median — 214 3.5
1947 1,479 7th lowest of 7 · 993% of median — 214 3.5
2016 41 3rd lowest of 7 · 28% of median — 152 0.8
2017 149 4th lowest of 7 · 100% of median — 245 1.2
2024 0 1st lowest of 7 · 0% of median 108 61 0.0
2025 35 2nd lowest of 7 · 24% of median 735 304 0.3

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 5 right(s), seniority decoded
diversion record current 1231 measured days, newest 331 day(s) before the data's end (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears)
record continuity sparse 6% of the irrigation seasons in 1924-2025 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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