Hydrohistorian
← My Water · Print / save as PDF
WARD DITCH 1
Structure dossier · WDID 4700942 · 1 · ILLINOIS RIVER · DWR record
Where this page's figures come from
Generated 2026-08-27 23:13 by Hydrohistorian. Sources: DWR HydroBase snapshot HydroBase_CO_20260707 (history) + CDSS REST (current), USGS NWIS cross-checks. Engine v0.5.0 (a1c9146) — 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 1888-05-15 — 154th most senior of the 1262 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: SCHOOL SECTION DITCH (1888-05-15). Immediately behind: TERRELL DITCH (1888-05-16).
Decreed rights (3)
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14015.0 | 1888-05-15 | 1892-09-19 | 3.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR | 122(113) |
| 14417.0 | 1889-06-21 | 1892-09-19 | 3.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR | 195(175) |
| 17496.0 | 1897-11-25 | 1902-04-23 | 13.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR | 287(274) |
Legal record & documents
3 decreed actions on record across
2 court cases:
CA1519, CA0922.
Every case, dated
| Case | Actions | Latest adjudication | Types |
|---|---|---|---|
CA1519 | 1 | 1902-04-23 | O |
CA0922 | 2 | 1892-09-19 | 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 15 years on record)
In a median year this structure has a recorded diversion of 895 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 77 AF — 9% of that, and 3rd 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 1,933 | 13th lowest of 15 · 216% of median | 136 | 16.6 |
| 2010 | 1,057 | 10th lowest of 15 · 118% of median | 100 | 11.3 |
| 2011 | 3,525 | 15th lowest of 15 · 394% of median | 189 | 24.8 |
| 2013 | 1,184 | 11th lowest of 15 · 132% of median | 72 | 11.4 |
| 2014 | 363 | 5th lowest of 15 · 41% of median | 72 | 4.1 |
| 2015 | 879 | 7th lowest of 15 · 98% of median | 93 | 16.6 |
| 2016 | 956 | 9th lowest of 15 · 107% of median | 94 | 5.9 |
| 2017 | 895 | 8th lowest of 15 · 100% of median | 69 | 27.0 |
| 2018 | 1,312 | 12th lowest of 15 · 147% of median | 65 | 13.0 |
| 2019 | 2,956 | 14th lowest of 15 · 330% of median | 119 | 21.1 |
| 2020 | 245 | 4th lowest of 15 · 27% of median | 77 | 3.1 |
| 2021 | 0 | 1st lowest of 15 · 0% of median | 7 | 0.0 |
| 2022 | 828 | 6th lowest of 15 · 92% of median | 141 | 5.8 |
| 2024 | 0 | 1st lowest of 15 · 0% of median | 1 | 0.0 |
| 2025 | 77 | 3rd lowest of 15 · 9% of median | 43 | 1.8 |
Trends for this structure
Recorded use is falling over its last 15 recorded years (-92 AF/yr, Mann-Kendall p=0.015).
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 | 3 right(s), seniority decoded |
| diversion record | present | 5038 measured days; currency unknown (no data-coverage date to compare against) |
| record continuity | sparse | 32% of the irrigation seasons in 1951-2025 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.