T6S R89W Sec 27

20 well permits here expired with no record of construction #

In the record

A permit is permission to drill and it runs out. These passed their expiry date and the state holds no completion report, no depth, no pump installation and no first beneficial use for them, so there is nothing on the record showing a well was ever built. That matters because the permission does not survive: drilling now means a new application under today's rules, and in a designated basin or a closed aquifer that application can be refused outright. A property described as having a well permit may be describing this. The most recent expired in 2021. The completion report is the document to ask for; if one exists, the state's file is simply behind.

An expired permit is not a well and it is not a right to drill one. Assume any water on this ground has to be permitted from scratch, on today's rules rather than the ones that applied when these were issued.

Colorado DWR well permits

Law C.R.S. 37-90-137(1)

CRYSTAL RIVER was flowing 15.6 CFS on 7 September #

In the record

Read at CRYSTAL RIVER AT DOW FISH HATCHERY AB CARBONDALE on this reach, on the same stream as the water decreed here rather than the nearest gauge on a map. Read it as a snapshot and not as a season. A creek running well in the morning can be called out by the afternoon and dry by September. What it is good for is sanity-checking a listing against the river, and knowing whether the gauge that governs this reach is even reporting. 5 stations report on this reach or the water feeding it.

This is what is in the channel now rather than what is decreed. Useful for what you would see walking it this week; it says nothing about a dry August.

Colorado DWR telemetry stations

117 of 117 irrigated acres in this section are hay or pasture #

In the record

Hay and pasture are the lowest-consumption irrigated uses in Colorado, and that matters in two directions. They need less water an acre than row crops, so the same right stretches further. But historical consumptive use is measured on what was actually grown, so ground that has only ever raised grass supports a smaller transferable yield if the right is ever moved or changed. That is 100% of the irrigated ground mapped in this square mile.

If the plan is to grow something thirstier, get an engineer's read on the historical consumptive use before you buy. A change of use is quantified on what the ground actually grew, so a hay history caps what the right can be moved to.

Colorado DWR irrigated lands mapping

None of the 38 rights here have a state curtailment analysis #

Not in the record

DWR runs a per-structure analysis of how often a right is actually called out, and it is the only authoritative answer to that question. We pull these from the state one structure at a time against a daily limit, and 38 have not been pulled yet. So nobody can yet say how often this water is actually called out. Any figure for it elsewhere here is our own screen against structure names, which raises the question rather than settling it. Our own name-matched screen reaches 24, and it overstates by a median of 94 days a year where it could be checked against the state's, so it raises a question rather than answering one.

Read the coverage before the conclusions. Where the state has analysed little, the quiet parts of this report are silence rather than good news.

Colorado DWR administrative call analysis

Law C.R.S. 37-92-502(2)

33 water court cases decreed the structures here #

In the record

These are the decrees behind the rights on this ground, and the case number is what a water lawyer works from. The decree states the amount, the priority, the uses it was decreed for, and every condition the court attached. The summary records we build on carry none of that in full. Ask the seller for the decrees, or pull them from the water court for this division.

The decree is the document, not this summary. Pull the case and read what it actually permits, on what terms, and to whom.

Colorado DWR structures roster

1 structure here predates 22 May 1972 #

In the record

Colorado's groundwater administration changed on that date, and rights and wells in production before it are not always held to the limits quoted for a modern permit, a well pumping 50 gpm before 22 May 1971 can still be exempt where a new one would be capped at 15. It does not follow that any particular structure here enjoys that, which depends on continuous use and on what the decree says, but it is the reason to check rather than assume the current rule applies.

Structures this old often predate the paperwork that would describe them. Expect the record to be thin and the physical condition to matter more than the file.

Colorado DWR structures roster

Law C.R.S. 37-92-602(1)

The county appraises this parcel at $1,511,470 #

In the record

This is the assessor's figure. It is not a market estimate and it does not appraise the water. Colorado values agricultural land on what it can PRODUCE rather than what it would sell for, so on irrigated ground this number is usually far below a listing price and the gap is not evidence of anything. It is here because it is the county's own published position on the property, and because a water right's contribution to value is not in it at all. The assessed value it is taxed on is $106,560.

An assessor's figure is for taxation, not a market appraisal, and in most Colorado counties it lags a sale by a year or more. Use the comparable sales below instead.

Colorado statewide parcel composite (OIT)

None of this 2.1-acre parcel is mapped as irrigated #

In the record

Colorado's irrigated-lands mapping shows no irrigated ground inside this boundary. The mapping is a snapshot and its vintage differs by division, so this is evidence rather than proof, but a listing describing irrigated acreage should be reconciled with it. There ARE 117 irrigated acres mapped in this square mile, and none of them fall inside this parcel: the irrigated ground is elsewhere in the section.

Nothing on this parcel is mapped as irrigated even though the section is. Ask which part of the ground the water actually reaches before paying for irrigated acreage.

Colorado statewide parcel composite (OIT)

12 nearby land sales in the last five years #

In the record

The closest recorded sales of 35 acres or more in the last five years, from the county assessor roll, 2021 to 2025. The middle one worked out at $9,247 an acre. These are what the county recorded, not asking prices, and the roll lags a closing by months. Two bounds are deliberate: nothing under 35 acres, because a house on a fifth of an acre divides out to a per-acre figure about the house rather than the land, and nothing older than five years, because ground that changed hands a decade ago is a different market rather than a comparable. These are the closest that qualify, so where the nearest is some miles out that is what the record holds rather than an oversight. Distance, acreage and water differ between them, which is the point of showing each rather than an average: read the distance and the irrigated share beside the price. 2 of these 12 carry mapped irrigation.

These are the nearest thing to a price for this ground that the public record holds. They are not an appraisal and the parcels are not identical, so compare the distance, the acreage and the irrigated share before comparing the price.

Colorado statewide parcel composite (OIT)

119 live well permits nearby are for ordinary domestic use #

In the record

Colorado's exempt-well statute is unusually specific, and every limit in it is a number worth planning against. A well inside the exemption may not exceed fifteen gallons per minute of production, may not serve more than three single-family dwellings, and may be used for ordinary household purposes, fire protection, the watering of poultry, domestic animals and livestock on farms and ranches, and the irrigation of not over one acre of home gardens and lawns. That last one is the limit people meet first: a lawn and a garden are inside it and a pasture is not. 30 other live wells nearby carry a household-use-only condition instead, which grants less than this. A permit can always be narrower than the statute, so the entitlement above describes the exemption rather than any particular permit here. Read the permit itself before relying on any of it. The statute sets the ceiling and the permit can sit below it.

Count the dwellings the plan needs against the three the exemption allows. That limit, more often than the flow rate, is what stops a second home or a family compound on one parcel.

Colorado DWR well permits

Law C.R.S. 37-92-602(1)(b)

Soil here is rated VERY LIMITED for septic in places, but not everywhere #

In the record

USDA's published septic interpretation. It does not mean a system is impossible; it means a conventional leach field will not pass, and the buyer is looking at an engineered system, which runs to tens of thousands of dollars and is sometimes refused outright by the county. Ratings vary across this section and better ground is mapped inside it, so where the house goes decides which rating applies. Worth locating the building envelope on the soil map before removing contingencies. Slopes run 2 to 43%.

Where the building envelope sits decides the answer here. Get the perc test on the spot you intend to build on, not on the parcel generally.

USDA NRCS SSURGO soil survey

FEMA has never mapped this area for flood #

Not in the record

No flood study exists here, which is common across rural Colorado. Nobody has looked, which is a different thing from someone looking and finding the risk is low. Ground that was mapped and came back outside the floodplain has an answer. This has none.

Unmapped is not the same as safe: it means FEMA has not studied it, so there is no elevation to build to and no rating to insure against. Ask the county what it requires here.

FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer

56 community water systems serve Garfield County #

In the record

About 50,685 people in Garfield County are on a community water system. 38 draw groundwater and 18 draw surface water. The federal compliance record holds 95 health-based violations across those systems, all returned to compliance, alongside 965 monitoring and reporting violations, which mean a late sample rather than bad water and are counted separately for that reason. This is a county-level count. The federal register records the county a system serves and Colorado publishes no service-area boundaries, so it says what exists in Garfield County, not whether any line reaches this parcel.

County-level context, not a supply for this parcel. It tells you whether a tap is even a concept here before you go looking for one.

EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS)

Soil here holds water at the surface rather than letting it through #

In the record

At least one major soil in this section is hydrologic group D, the slowest-infiltrating class. Water tends to run off and pond rather than soak away. For a stock pond or a reservoir that is the ground you want, since it will hold without lining. For a well it cuts the other way, because slow infiltration means slow recharge, and for a septic field it is the same property that makes an absorption bed fail. There are 6 impoundments of record on this ground, which is consistent with soil that holds water.

Expect water to sit rather than soak. It drives the septic answer, the driveway, and where a foundation can go, so walk it in spring rather than in August.

USDA SSURGO soil survey

3 things this land will ask of its owner every year #

In the record

Ownership here carries recurring duties, not just one-off diligence. Each of these comes from this section's own records rather than from anything true of rural property generally. The decrees carry the court filings and the plan, the well permits carry any metering, the soil survey carries septic, the well permit's own basin carries any interstate compact duty, and each one has somebody to ask. What none of them has is a published price: the amounts are set by a county board of health, a ditch company, a plan operator and a water lawyer, none of which the state publishes, so this report names the obligation and leaves the number to the quotes it is telling you to get. Ask the seller for last year's invoices against this list; that is the only honest source for what it actually runs.

Add these to the carrying cost before agreeing a price. Water rights that need annual filings and an augmentation assessment cost money to keep whether or not you use the water.

DWR water court decrees, DWR augmentation plans, DWR structure contacts of record

Law C.R.S. 37-92-301(4), C.R.S. 37-92-103(9)

63 wells here sit within 600 feet of another #

In the record

Six hundred feet is the statutory spacing for a new well permit, so this is a measure of how crowded the ground already is. A residential well pumping 15 gpm or less is excepted from the rule and can generally still be permitted; anything larger is argued case by case, with the state engineer weighing material injury to existing wells. If the plan needs a well bigger than a house, this is the constraint to ask about first.

Crowded wells draw on each other. Ask the seller what the static level does in August rather than in the spring, and treat a neighbour's new well as a real risk to yours.

Colorado DWR well permits

Law C.R.S. 37-90-137(2)

The most recent well here was completed in 2024 #

In the record

Somebody has drilled successfully on this ground recently, which is the most direct evidence available that a new well is physically achievable here. A completion report is filed when a well is finished, so this is the drilled record rather than the permitted one.

An old date is not a problem by itself, but it means the depths and yields on this page describe conditions that may have moved since. Weight a recent neighbour's well over an old one.

Colorado DWR well permits

The wells here sit outside Colorado's named-aquifer system #

In the record

The permits give the aquifer as “all unnamed aquifers”, which is a classification rather than a missing record. Colorado names four bedrock aquifers: Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe and Laramie-Fox Hills. Those are individually adjudicated with their own rules, and the Denver Basin is where that matters. Everywhere else the state does not administer groundwater by formation at all: what governs a well is whether pumping it depletes a stream, which is the tributary question this report answers separately. So the absence of a formation name here is not a gap in the record and there is nothing further to look up; it means the geology is not the thing that decides what you may pump.

Outside the named systems there is no published allocation to lean on, so the state's own figures thin out here. A driller's log from an adjacent parcel is worth more than any map.

Colorado DWR well permits

Law C.R.S. 37-90-103(10.5)

Owner of record: HALLIWELL, PHILIP M & BROOKE M #

In the record

From the county assessor roll via Colorado's statewide parcel composite. Last recorded sale Mar 2016 for $729,000. An assessor roll lags a closing by months, so it is who the county last billed, not necessarily who owns it today.

Check the name against the deed and against whoever holds the well permit. Three different names on those three documents is common, and it is where the diligence starts.

Colorado statewide parcel composite (OIT)

Bureau of Land Management land is 0.6 miles away #

In the record

Public land this close is usually part of why a rural property is worth what it is: the view stays, and so does the wildlife. Bordering public land is not a right to use or cross it. Access runs on recorded easements and on the managing agency's travel plan, both of which can change, and a parcel that can only be reached across public ground may have no legal access without one.

Nearby public land is an amenity, and it is also a fire, access and traffic neighbour. Find out which agency and what the management plan allows.

BLM Surface Management Agency

The United States holds no minerals under this ground #

In the record

The federal mineral estate is mapped here and shows no federal interest. That rules out the federal government as a mineral owner. It does not mean the minerals travel with the surface. A private reservation, made when the land was first sold on, leaves no trace in any statewide dataset, and that is a title question for the county clerk and recorder.

Federal ownership is ruled out, which is the cleanest of the possible answers. Private severance is not, and only a title search finds that.

BLM Colorado federal mineral estate

Inside 3 water governing districts, levying 0.5 mills #

In the record

Conservancy and river water conservation districts manage water across a whole basin. They do not supply a parcel. They can levy taxes, and they are the bodies that negotiate for the basin when a compact obligation is at stake. About three quarters of Colorado sits inside one, so this says more about where the parcel is than about the parcel. Certified mill levies: Colorado River Water Conservation District 0.5, Basalt Water Conservancy District 0.055, West Divide Water Conservancy District 0.041.

Governing districts levy, and some of them can levy on this parcel. The mills above are what each has certified; check them against the tax bill.

Colorado DOLA special district tax map