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CANARY BIRD DITCH
Structure dossier · WDID 4500539 · 1 · COLORADO RIVER · DWR record
Where this page's figures come from
Generated 2026-08-28 00:06 by Hydrohistorian. Sources: DWR HydroBase snapshot HydroBase_CO_20260707 (history) + CDSS REST (current), USGS NWIS cross-checks. Engine v0.5.0 (2deb1d7) — 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.
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 1886-04-01 — 48th most senior of the 1378 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: LOUIS REYNOLDS DITCH (1886-03-26). Immediately behind: SLIDING DITCH (1886-04-23).
Decreed rights (2)
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13240.0 | 1886-04-01 | 1888-05-05 | 1.0 | 0.0 | C | IRRDOMSTK | 48 |
| 13788.0 | 1887-10-01 | 1888-05-05 | 1.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR | 95 |
Legal record & documents
9 decreed actions on record across
5 court cases:
W2347, W1842, W1841, W1840, CA0089.
Every case, dated
| Case | Actions | Latest adjudication | Types |
|---|---|---|---|
W2347 | 2 | 1888-05-05 | O |
W1842 | 2 | 1888-05-05 | O |
W1841 | 1 | 1888-05-05 | O |
W1840 | 1 | 1888-05-05 | O |
CA0089 | 3 | 1888-05-05 | O |
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 6 years on record)
In a median year this structure has a recorded diversion of 100 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2007, came in at 108 AF — 108% of that, and 4th lowest of the 6 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | 603 | 6th lowest of 6 · 606% of median | 190 | 1.6 |
| 1987 | 91 | 3rd lowest of 6 · 92% of median | 184 | 0.2 |
| 1990 | 8 | 1st lowest of 6 · 8% of median | 214 | 0.0 |
| 2003 | 24 | 2nd lowest of 6 · 24% of median | 61 | 0.2 |
| 2004 | 206 | 5th lowest of 6 · 207% of median | 305 | 0.4 |
| 2007 | 108 | 4th lowest of 6 · 108% of median | 183 | 0.3 |
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 | 2 right(s), seniority decoded |
| diversion record | present | 1137 measured days; currency unknown (no data-coverage date to compare against) |
| record continuity | sparse | 24% of the irrigation seasons in 1985-2007 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.