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LOWER BIRD DITCH
Structure dossier · WDID 2300869 · DITCH · FISH CREEK · DWR record
Where this page's figures come from
Generated 2026-08-27 23:05 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
● Fully called out — call at LAST CHANCE DITCH 2 (SOUTH PLATTE RIVER, priority 1863-12-30).
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 1879-06-15 — 1138th 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: 2300868 (1879-05-20). Immediately behind: 2300667 (1882-06-30).
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. | Units | UsesWhat the court said this water may be used for -- irrigation, municipal supply, augmentation and so on. | Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23152.10758 | 1879-06-15 | 1918-05-18 | 2.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR |
Legal record & documents
1 decreed actions on record across
1 court case:
CA1777.
Every case, dated
| Case | Actions | Latest adjudication | Types |
|---|---|---|---|
CA1777 | 1 | 1918-05-18 | S |
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 30 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2023, came in at 3 AF — 10% of that, and 2nd 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | 185 | 14th lowest of 15 · 617% of median | 74 | 2.0 |
| 1985 | 185 | 14th lowest of 15 · 617% of median | 56 | 2.0 |
| 1986 | 18 | 5th lowest of 15 · 60% of median | 11 | 1.0 |
| 1987 | 169 | 13th lowest of 15 · 563% of median | 62 | 2.0 |
| 1995 | 83 | 11th lowest of 15 · 277% of median | 58 | 1.0 |
| 1996 | 0 | 1st lowest of 15 · 0% of median | 2 | 0.2 |
| 1998 | 24 | 7th lowest of 15 · 80% of median | 13 | 1.5 |
| 1999 | 156 | 12th lowest of 15 · 520% of median | 67 | 1.5 |
| 2005 | 69 | 10th lowest of 15 · 230% of median | 36 | 1.0 |
| 2006 | 36 | 9th lowest of 15 · 120% of median | 37 | 0.5 |
| 2007 | 30 | 8th lowest of 15 · 100% of median | 31 | 0.5 |
| 2008 | 18 | 5th lowest of 15 · 60% of median | 38 | 0.2 |
| 2010 | 17 | 4th lowest of 15 · 57% of median | 22 | 0.5 |
| 2011 | 15 | 3rd lowest of 15 · 50% of median | 16 | 0.5 |
| 2023 | 3 | 2nd lowest of 15 · 10% of median | 8 | 0.2 |
Trends for this structure
Recorded use is falling over its last 15 recorded years (-5 AF/yr, Mann-Kendall p=0.003).
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 | 1 right(s), seniority decoded |
| diversion record | present | 630 measured days; currency unknown (no data-coverage date to compare against) |
| record continuity | sparse | 7% of the irrigation seasons in 1983-2023 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.