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RAFAEL GARCIA DITCH
Structure dossier · WDID 7900522 · 1 · HUERFANO RIVER · DWR record
Where this page's figures come from
Generated 2026-08-28 00:57 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 1868-05-01 — 38th most senior of the 930 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: SEFTON DITCH NO 2 (1868-04-20). Immediately behind: UPPER HUERFANO NO 1 (1868-05-01).
Decreed rights (5)
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6696.0 | 1868-05-01 | 1889-06-12 | 0.089 | 0.0 | C | IRR | 29 |
| 7014.0 | 1869-03-15 | 1889-06-12 | 1.244 | 0.0 | C | IRR | 33 |
| 18915.18767 | 1901-05-20 | 1921-10-03 | 1.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR | 272 |
| 21750.0 | 1909-07-20 | 1921-10-03 | 1.0 | 0.0 | C | IRR | 400 |
| 26208.24563 | 1917-04-02 | 1965-03-15 | 1.5 | 0.0 | C | IRRDOMSTK | 439 |
Legal record & documents
5 decreed actions on record across
3 court cases:
CA3266, CA1414, CA1642.
Every case, dated
| Case | Actions | Latest adjudication | Types |
|---|---|---|---|
CA3266 | 1 | 1965-03-15 | S |
CA1414 | 2 | 1921-10-03 | S |
CA1642 | 2 | 1889-06-12 | 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 14 years on record)
In a median year this structure has a recorded diversion of 238 AF. Its most recent year on record, 1986, came in at 893 AF — 375% of that, and 12th lowest of the 14 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1924 | 151 | 6th lowest of 14 · 63% of median | 77 | 1.0 |
| 1941 | 63 | 3rd lowest of 14 · 26% of median | 33 | 1.0 |
| 1942 | 30 | 1st lowest of 14 · 13% of median | 16 | 1.0 |
| 1944 | 63 | 3rd lowest of 14 · 26% of median | 33 | 1.0 |
| 1945 | 42 | 2nd lowest of 14 · 18% of median | 23 | 1.0 |
| 1948 | 242 | 8th lowest of 14 · 102% of median | 62 | 2.0 |
| 1949 | 242 | 8th lowest of 14 · 102% of median | 62 | 2.0 |
| 1976 | 234 | 7th lowest of 14 · 98% of median | 36 | 4.0 |
| 1981 | 107 | 5th lowest of 14 · 45% of median | 29 | 3.0 |
| 1982 | 560 | 11th lowest of 14 · 235% of median | 102 | 4.0 |
| 1983 | 1,700 | 14th lowest of 14 · 714% of median | 152 | 8.2 |
| 1984 | 559 | 10th lowest of 14 · 235% of median | 50 | 6.0 |
| 1985 | 1,428 | 13th lowest of 14 · 600% of median | 92 | 10.0 |
| 1986 | 893 | 12th lowest of 14 · 375% of median | 62 | 10.0 |
Trends for this structure
Recorded use is rising over its last 14 recorded years (+13 AF/yr, Mann-Kendall p=0.004).
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 | 5 right(s), seniority decoded |
| diversion record | present | 829 measured days; currency unknown (no data-coverage date to compare against) |
| record continuity | sparse | 6% of the irrigation seasons in 1924-1986 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.