Colorado Water Rights & Structures Screener — CDSS Radius Search

Screen any list of coordinates against the Colorado Division of Water Resources (CO DWR) CDSS database — the state's authoritative registry of water structures (ditches, wells, reservoirs) and the water rights attached to them. For every site you pass in, the actor returns every nearby structure with its water source, distance, county/division/water-district, plus seniority context (appropriation date, priority admin number, decreed uses) for the closest structures — and a one-line water-availability rollup per site.

Answers, by coordinate: What water structures are near this site? Whose water rights are they, and how senior? Is this a water-stressed area?

Who it's for

• Data-center site selectors — Colorado's water fights over hyperscale cooling demand are national news; screen candidate sites for existing water infrastructure and senior-rights pressure before committing to a parcel.
• Renewable energy & agricultural land developers — check for competing wells/ditches/reservoirs and their priority dates near a proposed project or farmland acquisition.
• Water brokers & water-rights attorneys — a fast first-pass inventory of nearby structures and priority context before a full title/decree search.
• Land agents & real-estate due-diligence teams — add a water-availability check to a Phase-I-style site screen, alongside the other CO siting actors in this portfolio.
• AI agents & data pipelines — a chainable geospatial water-rights lookup for siting and due-diligence workflows via MCP.

How it works

1. You supply assets — a list of {lat, lon, label} sites.
2. For each asset, the actor queries the CDSS Structures API (/api/v2/structures/) for a radius search around the coordinate, returning geocoded ditches, wells, reservoirs, and other diversion/storage structures.
3. Distances are recomputed locally with the haversine formula (not trusted from API ordering) and structures are sorted nearest-first.
4. For the nearest seniorityDetailLimit structures (default 10), the actor looks up water-rights seniority via the CDSS net-amount endpoint (/api/v2/waterrights/netamount/) — appropriation date, priority admin number, decreed units/uses, and net absolute amount — and flags rights with an appropriation date before 1950-01-01 as a coarse "senior right" proxy.
5. One row is emitted per nearby structure (capped by maxResultsPerAsset), plus one summary row per asset with structure-type counts, nearest distance, and a water_stress_note.

Coordinates outside Colorado are still queried — CDSS simply returns 0 structures, and you get an explicit clear/summary row noting that CDSS only covers Colorado.

Example input

{
  "assets": [
    { "lat": 40.423, "lon": -104.709, "label": "Greeley CO ag parcel" },
    { "lat": 39.739, "lon": -104.99, "label": "Denver downtown control" }
  ],
  "radiusMiles": 5,
  "structureTypes": [],
  "seniorityDetailLimit": 10,
  "maxResultsPerAsset": 200
}

Output fields

One "structure" row per nearby water structure (nearest-first) plus one "summary" row per asset (row_type distinguishes them):

Field	Meaning
asset_label, asset_lat, asset_lon, radius_miles	Echo of the site you submitted
wdid, structure_name, structure_type, water_source	CDSS structure identity and water source
county, water_district, division	CO DWR administrative location
distance_miles	Locally recomputed great-circle distance from the asset
ciu_code, por_start, por_end	Current-in-use code and period of record
appropriation_date, priority_admin_number, decreed_uses, net_absolute	Seniority detail for the most senior right found (structure rows only, nearest N per seniorityDetailLimit)
senior_pre1950_flag	true when the most senior appropriation predates 1950-01-01
structures_within_radius, wells_count, ditches_count, reservoirs_count	Summary rows only: structure-type counts within the radius
nearest_structure_distance_mi	Summary rows only: distance to the single closest structure
senior_rights_sampled, senior_pre1950_count	Summary rows only: how many nearest structures had seniority sampled, and how many are pre-1950
water_stress_note	Summary rows only: one-line human-readable rollup
error	Null on success; a message when an asset couldn't be screened
source_url, checked_at	CDSS endpoint used and run timestamp

Use as an MCP tool

This actor is a clean, chainable tool for AI agents (Claude, Cursor, etc.) via mcp.apify.com. Every output field carries a schema description, so an agent can pass a coordinate and reason directly over structures_within_radius, senior_pre1950_flag, and water_stress_note — e.g. as one step in a site-selection or due-diligence pipeline alongside this portfolio's other siting screeners.

FAQ

How do I find water rights near my property in Colorado? Pass the lat/lon as an asset and read the structure rows for every nearby ditch, well, or reservoir, and the summary row for a quick rollup.

Is this the CDSS water rights API? Yes — this actor wraps the Colorado DWR's public CDSS REST API v2 (/api/v2/structures/ and /api/v2/waterrights/netamount/), no key required.

What does "senior" mean here? senior_pre1950_flag is a coarse proxy: the most senior appropriation date found for a structure predates 1950-01-01. It is not a call-status or priority-administration determination — always verify with CO DWR / the Division Engineer and a water-rights professional.

Does this cover water availability for a data-center site? It gives you the raw inventory and seniority context CO water-availability due diligence starts with — existing structures, whose rights they are, and how old those rights are. Pair with local aquifer/basin studies and a water-rights attorney for a full determination.

Do I need an API key? No. CDSS is public and keyless. To respect CDSS's anonymous request budget, the actor caps seniority lookups per asset (seniorityDetailLimit) and assets per run.

What about states other than Colorado? v1 covers Colorado only. A v1.1 roadmap adds New Mexico (OSE), Utah, and Idaho as those states' public water-rights APIs are mapped.

Data source

Colorado Division of Water Resources (CO DWR) — Colorado's Decision Support Systems (CDSS) REST API v2. https://dwr.state.co.us/