About three miles south of Ridgway, up County Road 5, Lake Otonowanda serves as the town's water storage. It is small next to Ridgway Reservoir, the big lake north of town that most visitors picture when they think of local water. The town's water comes from Beaver Creek and Cottonwood Creek. Both are fed by snowmelt and eventually reach the Uncompahgre River. Ridgway stores water in "Lake O," and water travels downhill to settling ponds and the treatment plant, as the Ouray County Plaindealer reported on October 7.
That difference stopped being trivia this year. In a drought summer, two properties a few miles apart around Ridgway lived under different rules, and the reason was which water provider serves each one.
Three providers, one drought, one set of restrictions
The 2026 water year is on track to be Colorado's warmest on record. In September, nearly two-thirds of Ouray County was in extreme drought, according to the Plaindealer's September 9 roundup. Even so, the water providers in the county responded in very different ways.
Ridgway was the only provider in the county to order cutbacks. A Town memo dated July 4 says the Mayor put Stage 2 mandatory restrictions in place effective July 2. They included limited watering days and no irrigation between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. or on Mondays. The Plaindealer reported that the restrictions came shortly after the Gold Mountain Fire started and limited irrigation to two days a week.
Tri-County Water Conservancy District serves customers from Delta down to the Idlewild subdivision between Ridgway and Ouray, including 941 households in Ouray County. It ordered no cutbacks. Tri-County shares 28,100 acre-feet stored in Ridgway Reservoir with the other members of the Project 7 water cooperative, including Montrose, Delta and Olathe. General Manager Jerry Young told the Plaindealer, "This year, our water rights tied to Ridgway Reservoir filled to 100%, so we didn't feel like we needed to impose water restrictions."
The city of Ouray, whose water comes from Weehawken Spring and isn't metered for individual customers, also skipped restrictions. Records the Plaindealer obtained show its spring inflows were down about 14.5% through July compared with 2025.
So the same drought produced restrictions on one system and none on the two systems next to it. Tri-County's rights in Ridgway Reservoir came in full. The town's creeks and ditch had a harder year.
This is also the town system's second restricted summer in a row, and the 2025 cause was different. The Plaindealer reported that July 2025 came under stricter Stage 3 restrictions because floods in 2024 destroyed the town's water diversion system. One year the problem was infrastructure. The next year it was snowpack. Both times, the constraint was getting creek water into the system. Total stored volume somewhere in the valley wasn't the issue.
How the water reaches a Ridgway tap
The Town's draft Water Supply Element lays the system out piece by piece:
- Cottonwood Creek is diverted at the Happy Hollow Ditch.
- Beaver Creek water runs through the Ridgway Ditch.
- Some Beaver Creek water goes to Lake Otonowanda, which can hold 756 acre-feet and carries water from one season to the next.
- Cottonwood Creek water and the rest of the Beaver Creek water go to pre-sedimentation ponds and then to the treatment plant, which was built in 2008.
In an average year, the draft puts the physical supply at about 325 million gallons, or roughly 1,000 acre-feet. About 220 million gallons come from Beaver Creek through the Ridgway Ditch and 108 million from Cottonwood Creek. In the driest years, total supply can fall to about 200 million gallons, or 625 acre-feet. The draft says that drop "sharply tightens the margin between supply and demand."
Only about 20 lots at the north end of town get their water from Tri-County. The draft notes an emergency interconnect agreement between the two systems but no planned expansion of Tri-County service inside town. Within town limits, then, the reservoir-backed supply covers a small edge of the map.
The 2 cfs right the plan relies on
The core of the draft is a single water right. Ridgway holds the most senior right decreed to divert from the Ridgway Ditch, up to 2 cubic feet per second year-round. Below it in priority sits a 25 cfs irrigation right, held by several parties including the Town, that runs April through October. Below that is a 5 cfs year-round municipal right owned by the Town.
The modeling behind the draft was done by LRE and doesn't count on the two junior rights. It treats their priority as "more likely to be legally limited." Its benchmark, which it calls "Full Entitlement," means taking the full 2 cfs from April to October and about 0.25 cfs from November to March. Running that way would add about 41 million gallons, or 125 acre-feet, from the ditch in an average year. In a dry year, the Town would likely have legal and physical access to more than 600 acre-feet, roughly 200 more than its normal dry-year supply from the ditch.
The draft says the Beaver Creek Diversion Restoration Project improved the ditch's ability to divert water, putting Full Entitlement "very likely within reach." It adds that better monitoring may be needed to reach that capacity year-round. In plain terms, the town's long-range water picture depends less on finding new water and more on consistently diverting water the Town already has a senior claim to.
How much growth the draft says the system can absorb
The draft tests three population scenarios through 2050, starting from 2025 use of about 113 gallons per person per day across residential, business and public uses.
| 2050 scenario | Population change | Residents | Annual demand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low growth | +23% | 1,415 | 126.4 million gallons |
| Medium growth | +37% | 1,575 | 136.2 million gallons |
| High growth | +81% | 2,080 | 166.7 million gallons |
Under current climate conditions, the model meets low- and medium-growth demand except in extreme cases where flows drop below anything seen historically. The high-growth case strains the supply. At current operating levels, the most the system could deliver was 139 million gallons, which matches the high-growth model's projected demand for 2039. In several simulations that included climate change, shortages topped 38 million gallons. The draft concludes that without Full Entitlement operation, the current system could not fully meet 2050 high-growth demand in a dry year, even if it lost no water to leaks.
The Plaindealer summed up the headline as water health that is "promising" through 2050, with room for roughly a 40% population increase. The table shows the condition attached to that finding. The margin holds as long as the ditch delivers.
The treatment plant timeline
Supply is one limit, and the treatment plant is another. The plant is rated at 500 gallons per minute, about 600,000 gallons a day. A 2019 assessment recommended planning an expansion once the plant reaches 75% of capacity, or 0.45 million gallons a day, which it estimated would happen around 2039. The 2008 building has room for at least two more filter trains, but the backwash ponds were sized for current operations and would need review in any expansion.
Town Manager Preston Neill gave the Plaindealer a sense of peak demand. Over his seven years with the town, he said, it hasn't been unusual to see "300,000 gallons plus" of daily use on hot July and August days, especially weekends. He added that summer 2026 didn't reach that level. Ridgway also bills on a tiered rate system that charges more for high use.
Where this shows up in a purchase
Senior planner Angie Kemp told the Plaindealer that the water supply element "doesn't directly change any town regulations." It is meant to guide future decisions, and Colorado's Senate Bill 24-174 requires it by year's end. Public comment closes October 14, the Planning Commission is expected to review it October 21, and the Town Council vote is tentatively set for November 19.
The draft does point to how development review could change. It recommends standardized water-demand estimates for proposed projects, adding supply and infrastructure to annexation and land-use reviews, letting applicants show lower demand through conservation measures, and revising the development-size criterion in Code §7-1-6. It also says a residential building permit would not be denied based on the demand-estimate process alone. Existing code already requires a water-supply report for a development permit, and no permit issues until the Town finds the supply adequate.
When you compare Ridgway-area properties, a few questions sort out which system you'd actually be on:
- Which provider serves the parcel? It could be the Town system on Beaver and Cottonwood creeks, Tri-County's reservoir-backed supply at the north end of town and in areas like Idlewild, or something else.
- What were the summer rules there? In 2026, Town customers were under Stage 2 irrigation limits and Tri-County customers were not.
- For a vacant lot, what does a connection involve? Ridgway's online municipal code lists a $6,000 fee for a ¾-inch single-family tap. That amount traces to a step-up effective July 1, 2017, and we found no 2026 update, so confirm the current figure with the Town.
- For land near town limits, how would water be handled at annexation? Existing code allows annexation agreements to provide taps or other consideration as long as the Town's water and sewer funds are reimbursed.
As of October 12, we couldn't confirm whether the summer restrictions have been lifted. The September 9 council agenda included "Consideration of rescinding Stage 2 Mandatory Water Restrictions," but the agenda doesn't record a vote. The October 14 agenda includes a resolution modifying the Town's Water Conservation and Management Plan. Tri-County's position could also change. Young told the Plaindealer that a continued drought could leave its reservoir shares short of a full allocation.
If you're weighing a home or lot in or around Ridgway and want to know which water system it's on and how that system handled this year, Colorado Land Home & Ranch can go through it with you before you make an offer. Water is a regular part of how we look at Western Slope property, from ditch rights to tap fees. Schedule a consultation and bring the parcel address.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
