Water Storage
The principal water feature of the Blue Agate Ranch is the Children's Reservoir. It has a dam height of 30 feet and an area of 461 acres. With a decreed storage capacity of 7,727 acre-feet, the off-stream reservoir is filled from Godfrey Gulch. The reservoir can also be filled from East Bijou Creek through a previously existing canal known as the Agate Ditch. The groundwater beneath the Ranch, including both shallow “tributary” groundwater and deeper “non-tributary” groundwater found in the Laramie Fox Hills formation is also potentially water that can be stored in the Reservoir.

About the Water Rights
There are two types of groundwater available on the Ranch. One type is the shallow groundwater located within the alluvial deposits just below the surface. The second type is the deeper groundwater located in the Denver Basin Aquifer bedrock formations. All of the groundwater developed to-date on the property is alluvial groundwater. The property is located within the Kiowa-Bijou Designated Groundwater Basin and development of groundwater in the area is managed by the Kiowa-Bijou Management District.

Children's Reservoir Dam Inspection
In the fall of 1994, an inspection of the Children's (aka Ball) Reservoir Dam was performed by a Mr. Dennis Miller, P.E. of the Dam Safety Branch, State Engineer’s Office (SEO) and a Mr. John Anderson, Colorado’s then Water Commissioner. The inspection of the Dam actually included the main dam, the southwest dike and the spillway dike. The report states that the overall condition of the reservoir is conditionally satisfactory. This report is available upon request of qualified buyers of the Blue Agate Ranch.

Watersheds in the Area
The Godfrey Gulch drainage area consists of approximately 34 square miles (21,760 acres) and the East Bijou Creek drainage area consist of approximately 177 square miles (113,280 acres). The land within the watersheds are used for grazing and pasture, with some cultivated crops, primarily wheat and sorghum.

Water History of the Area
Deep within the U.S. Federal Government’s files lies a little known document about the area. It’s the document that reveals in the early 70’s the Army Corp of Engineers recognition of the potential need to dam up the east Bijou Creek. With the historical water flows occurring in the early 60’s, the Corp recognized the land’s inherent ability to capture and store both surface and groundwater. It is said the project was abandoned due to costs, rather than practicality.

This was long after the, then called Ball Ranch, already had established the reservoir and its adjudicated rights to store about 8,000 acre-feet of water.