Western Water Data

Morgan County, Colorado — water rights summary

Seniority, absolute versus conditional water, and decreed uses for all 1,615 water rights on record in Morgan County, taken from the state's own records. Priority dates run from 1868-04-20 to 2024-12-31.

At a glance

1,615water rights on record
96,289acre-feet absolute (perfected)
274,009acre-feet conditional (decreed, not yet perfected)
12.3%of rights carry a conditional portion

CFS on record: 10,440.7 absolute · 3,495.1 conditional. Flow (CFS) and volume (AF) are never added together.

Risk: absolute vs conditional

Worth knowing: Morgan County has about 2.8x more acre-feet decreed as conditional than as absolute. Conditional water is decreed on paper but not yet put to beneficial use. A buyer or lender who does not separate the two is valuing a different asset than the one on the ground.

Seniority by era

In a dry year the oldest rights are served first. This is how Morgan County's rights are distributed.

EraRightsShare
pre-1900382.4%
1900-194948029.7%
1950-196975146.5%
1970-19991549.5%
2000+19211.9%

What the water is decreed for

Decreed useRights
Irrigation1,058
Domestic351
Stock223
Recharge184
Augmentation144
Commercial143

The ten most senior rights on record

Ranked by the state's own priority administration number, the figure DWR uses to order rights by seniority.

PriorityStructureSourceAmount UsesVerify
1868-04-20UPPER PLATTE BEAVER CNLSOUTH PLATTE RIVER15.0 CFSIrrigationstate record
1869-05-15UPPER PLATTE BEAVER CNLSOUTH PLATTE RIVER5.17 CFSIrrigationstate record
1871-04-02DEUEL SNYDER CANALSOUTH PLATTE RIVER13.0 CFSIrrigation, Augmentation, Rechargestate record
1872-06-01JOHNSON AND EDWARDS DITCHSOUTH PLATTE RIVER15.0 CFSIrrigationstate record
1874-07-01DEUEL SNYDER CANALSOUTH PLATTE RIVER8.0 CFSIrrigation, Augmentation, Rechargestate record
1874-11-15TETSEL DITCHSOUTH PLATTE RIVER17.0 CFSIrrigationstate record
1882-05-01BEAVER DITCHBEAVER CREEK44.0 CFSIrrigation, Municipal, Commercial, Industrial, Domestic, Augmentation, Otherstate record
1882-06-20UPPER PLATTE BEAVER CNLSOUTH PLATTE RIVER50.0 CFSIrrigationstate record
1882-07-01TETSEL DITCHSOUTH PLATTE RIVER20.0 CFSIrrigationstate record
1882-09-04LOWER PLATTE BEAVER DSOUTH PLATTE RIVER38.0 CFSIrrigationstate record

Need this for a deal?

This page is the summary. The full file for Morgan County covers every one of the 1,615 rights, with its priority date, seniority number, absolute and conditional amounts, decreed uses and a link to each official record, as a spreadsheet.

Buying, lending on, or listing irrigated ground here? Ask for the county file, or for a single property's water summary. The first one is on me.

erik@westernwaterdata.com

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Records last updated 10 September 2026.