Is my ditch in priority?

This page explains how to read public records. It is not a ruling. Your water commissioner and the Division Engineer's office decide what is in priority, and only your decree defines your rights.

Step 1: Find your structure and its WDID

Every ditch headgate, reservoir and well that DWR administers has a WDID, a seven-digit identifier whose first two digits are the water district (see What is a WDID?). Search by name or WDID on BasinMind's Structures page or in the CDSS structures tool. Names repeat — there are many “Highline” ditches — so check the water source and county too. On the Map you can find structures by location.

Step 2: List its water rights

A single ditch often holds several rights, each with its own decreed amount (in cfs), appropriation date, adjudication date and administration number. Some were decreed in the 1800s, some much later. The structure page lists them. Note the administration number of each right: it is what DWR compares against the call. A smaller number is more senior.

Step 3: Find the call that governs your stream

Open the active calls for your water division (on Today, or in CDSS). For each call, look at the water source and where the calling structure sits. A call affects rights upstream of the calling structure on the stream it is placed on, and can extend up the tributaries above it. Calls on other creeks do not govern your headgate unless water from your stretch would reach them.

If there is no active call on your stream system, the stream is said to be a “free river” for your rights: you may divert up to your decreed amount, subject to the physical water available and any other conditions in your decree.

Step 4: Compare

• Your right is senior to the call (older priority, smaller administration number): the right is in priority. You may divert up to that right's decreed amount if the water is physically there.
• Your right is junior to the call and upstream of the calling right on the same stream system: it is out of priority. You must stop diverting under that right unless a futile-call finding, an exchange or an augmentation plan applies.
• Some rights in, some out: common for ditches with several decrees. You may divert only the amounts of the rights that are in priority.

CDSS has a Structure Call Analysis tool that compares a structure's rights with the calls over a period of time and reports when each right was in or out of priority. It is the most direct public check.

Things that change the answer

• Futile call — the Division Engineer may let a junior divert if curtailing it would not deliver usable water to the senior.
• Exchanges and augmentation plans — a junior can divert out of priority if it replaces its depletions as its decree or plan requires.
• Compact administration — on the Rio Grande and Conejos, DWR curtails diversions by a percentage to meet the Rio Grande Compact, which works differently from an ordinary call.
• Wells — tributary wells are administered in priority too, usually through augmentation plans or rules specific to the basin. Designated basins and nontributary groundwater follow different rules.
• Timing — calls can be placed or released several times in a week. A screen you looked at this morning may be out of date this afternoon.

Using BasinMind for this

Ask BasinMind can do steps 1–4 from public data: give it your ditch name or WDID and it reads the structure's rights and today's calls, then explains which rights appear to be in priority. Every answer cites its sources. Treat it as a starting point and confirm with your water commissioner; contact details for each division are on DWR's division-office pages.