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APRIL DITCH
Structure dossier · WDID 5900512 · 1 · GUNNISON RIVER · DWR record
Where this page's figures come from
Generated 2026-08-28 00:59 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 1891-11-10 — 165th most senior of the 2360 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: MOUNT CARBON DITCH (1891-06-10). Immediately behind: GEO SMITH NO 1 DITCH (1892-04-15).
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15289.0 | 1891-11-10 | 1906-09-14 | 3.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR | 90 |
| 30667.15289 | 1891-11-10 | 1941-04-29 | 9.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR | 348 |
Legal record & documents
2 decreed actions on record across
2 court cases:
CA2021, CA1325.
Every case, dated
| Case | Actions | Latest adjudication | Types |
|---|---|---|---|
CA2021 | 1 | 1941-04-29 | S |
CA1325 | 1 | 1906-09-14 | 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 2,633 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 1,540 AF — 58% 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 3,493 | 14th lowest of 15 · 133% of median | 200 | 18.2 |
| 2012 | 4,273 | 15th lowest of 15 · 162% of median | 210 | 14.7 |
| 2013 | 2,633 | 8th lowest of 15 · 100% of median | 180 | 11.6 |
| 2014 | 2,763 | 10th lowest of 15 · 105% of median | 167 | 15.6 |
| 2015 | 2,911 | 12th lowest of 15 · 111% of median | 213 | 16.9 |
| 2016 | 3,112 | 13th lowest of 15 · 118% of median | 197 | 19.4 |
| 2017 | 2,808 | 11th lowest of 15 · 107% of median | 203 | 19.4 |
| 2018 | 2,712 | 9th lowest of 15 · 103% of median | 209 | 17.9 |
| 2019 | 2,294 | 5th lowest of 15 · 87% of median | 176 | 17.7 |
| 2020 | 1,174 | 1st lowest of 15 · 45% of median | 153 | 8.5 |
| 2021 | 1,634 | 4th lowest of 15 · 62% of median | 181 | 12.1 |
| 2022 | 2,456 | 7th lowest of 15 · 93% of median | 161 | 13.6 |
| 2023 | 1,557 | 3rd lowest of 15 · 59% of median | 181 | 14.4 |
| 2024 | 2,404 | 6th lowest of 15 · 91% of median | 200 | 19.3 |
| 2025 | 1,540 | 2nd lowest of 15 · 58% of median | 201 | 13.3 |
Trends for this structure
Recorded use is falling over its last 15 recorded years (-134 AF/yr, Mann-Kendall p=0.002).
How good is our record of it?
Grade A (9/10 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 | 8804 measured days; currency unknown (no data-coverage date to compare against) |
| record continuity | continuous | 81% of the irrigation seasons in 1975-2025 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.