CHAPSON AND HOWE DITCH ☆ My Water

In short

CHAPSON AND HOWE DITCH holds 5 decreed rights on WEST FORK SAN JUAN RIVER. No active call senior to its rights reaches its district today (3 active calls checked), so it is in priority now. 2 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 call in the record verifiably applies to this district (statements and caller locations checked). In a median year over its last 15 recorded years it diverts 5,649 acre-feet. It was a party to 3 court cases that also touched 14 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.

Current administration

● In priority — no active call senior to this structure's rights affects its district (3 active call(s) checked).

2 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 call in the record verifiably applies to this district (statements and caller locations checked). 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 1890-10-31 — 100th most senior of the 853 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: FOUR-MILE DITCH (1890-10-15)☆. Immediately behind: MESA DITCH (1891-01-12)☆.

On WEST FORK SAN JUAN RIVER at river mile -3.3, it is 41st of 74 down the reach. Immediately upstream: HOWE DITCH☆. Immediately downstream: MARIE LAKE☆.

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)

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 much of this decree was in priority, by day

A right is in priority on a day when it is senior to every call administering this structure. Of its 45.6 cfs decreed rate, the average day over the last 6 year(s) had 45.6 cfs in priority (100% of the decree). No call in effect is a free river — that was 100.0% of days.

Calls are set and released at a time of day, not at midnight, so a day is counted by the hour: a call setting at 4pm costs that day a third of its rate, not all of it.

This is paper water. It is the decreed rate that was in priority — not water that was physically in the stream, and not water this structure diverted. A ditch can be in priority for 50 cfs on a day the creek carries five. What that distinction means →

Legal record & documents

13 decreed actions on record across 5 court cases: 98CW0088, 10CW0071, CA0308-D, 84CW0108, CA0165.

Imaged documents at DWR. DWR keeps the scanned documents for this structure — decrees, rulings, plats, correspondence — in its Laserfiche archive. Open the list directly: imaged documents for 2900560 ↗ (indexed by structure, not by case — the cases listed above appear within the list).

Other DWR records for this structure: DWR’s page for this structure ↗ — net amounts, water rights, transactions & adjudication history, and diversion records, all on that one page. On this site: the district’s full legal picture →

Structures it shares court cases with

This structure was a party to 3 court cases that also touched 14 other structures — changes of water right, augmentation plans, exchanges. Being parties to the same case does not by itself mean water moved between them; which way it ran, and how much, is in the decree.

Also a party to 2 omnibus adjudications (CA0308-D, 174 structures; 84CW0108, 39 structures). Those settled many rights at once and are listed separately: they say these structures were adjudicated together, not that they deal with each other.

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 5,649 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 1,472 AF — 26% of that, and 1st 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.

Call-derived yield: senior right divertible 23.4% of a median season / 0.0% dry-year.

Trends for this structure

Recorded use shows no clear trend over its last 15 recorded years — which is itself worth knowing.

Its reference gage, San Juan River at Pagosa Springs: no clear flow trend.

Every gage and reach in this district →

How good is our record of it?

Grade A (10/10 points) — the components below are the finding; the letter alone is not.