PIEDRA FALLS DITCH ☆ My Water

Who owns it

• Piedra Falls Ditch Company (nonprofit corporation) — probable match, from the Colorado Secretary of State business record ↗; verify before relying on it. A nonprofit corporation of this name, in good standing, with its principal office in Southlake; matched on the name and the location, not confirmed by the company.

DWR’s own records name no owner for a ditch, reservoir or well, so this comes from the source shown and can be out of date. Organisations only: a private landowner’s name is never listed.

Where this structure is measured

A green link is DWR's own: either its telemetry inventory maps this WDID to that station, or the station is named for this WDID (0700553 → 0700553A). An amber one is ours — the station sits within 250 m and shares a distinctive word with this structure's name, which is a strong hint rather than a DWR statement that this gage meters this structure. Wrong? Tell us.

In short

PIEDRA FALLS DITCH holds 2 decreed rights on EAST FORK PIEDRA RIVER. A call at PIEDRA FALLS DITCH on EAST FORK PIEDRA RIVER (1934-07-17) currently reaches it: junior rights called out. 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: this structure is not on the modelled flow network, so no reference gage can honestly stand in for it. In a median year over its last 15 recorded years it diverts 2,853 acre-feet. It was a party to 1 court cases that also touched 2 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

● Junior rights called out — call at PIEDRA FALLS DITCH (EAST FORK PIEDRA RIVER, priority 1934-07-17).

Which of its rights are out of priority?

The outlook for the weeks ahead is not computable for this structure: this structure is not on the modelled flow network, so no reference gage can honestly stand in for it. 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 1934-07-18 — 131st most senior of the 371 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: EUGENIO GALLEGOS DITCH (1934-04-01)☆. Immediately behind: PIEDRA RETAIN POND FEED (1934-08-16)☆.

Decreed rights (2)

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 26.0 cfs decreed rate, the average day over the last 6 year(s) had 26.0 cfs in priority (100% of the decree). No call in effect is a free river — that was 88.0% 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. A call began or ended mid-day on 3 of these days.

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

4 decreed actions on record across 3 court cases: CA0308-D, CA0308, 06CW0129.

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 7800604 ↗ (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 1 court case that also touched 2 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, 76 structures; CA0308-D, 76 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 2,853 AF. Its most recent year on record, 2025, came in at 1,162 AF — 41% 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 2.3% 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.

Every gage and reach in this district →

How good is our record of it?

Grade B (8/10 points) — the components below are the finding; the letter alone is not.