Central Colorado Rocky Mountains
SourceWater Consulting provides water rights administration, hydrologic investigations and modeling, regulatory compliance, and operator services to public water systems, municipalities, and landowners across the Central Colorado Rocky Mountains — grounded in prior-appropriation law and field hydrology.
What we do
From the legal foundation of a water right to the day-to-day operation of a small system, SourceWater covers the full span of what it takes to manage water responsibly in Colorado.
Administration of augmentation plans, exchanges, and replacement-plan accounting under Colorado's prior-appropriation system, including water-rights analysis and reporting in Water Division 2.
Operator-of-record (ORC) services for small public water systems, paired with the CDPHE drinking-water compliance that keeps them in good standing. Day-to-day operations, sampling schedules, monitoring, recordkeeping, and state reporting handled together.
Hydrogeologic site investigations, tracer studies, and groundwater modeling for complex sites, including CERCLA contaminated-site characterization and geothermal resource investigations across the basin.
PFAS/PFOA sampling and water-quality investigations aligned with Colorado Regulation 11, delivered with clear results and straightforward guidance on what comes next.
How we work
SourceWater pairs fluency in Colorado water law and CDPHE regulation with hands-on hydrology — stream gaging, instrumentation, and the data behind the decree. The result is analysis that holds up both in practice and on paper.
For a small system, that means one point of contact who understands the engineering, the regulation, and the water court record together, instead of three vendors who each see only their slice.
From the field
Stream gaging, augmentation stations, diversion structures, treatment systems, and water-quality analysis — the day-to-day of managing water across the Central Colorado Rocky Mountains.
Selected projects
Most of SourceWater's work ends up in a decree, a compliance file, or a dataset nobody outside the project sees. These two are public — you can open the live data right now.
SourceWater programmed and installed the gaging equipment across the District's reservoir and stream stations, and integrated them with NOAA's GOES-West satellite telemetry so readings reach the public portal without a site visit.
A continuous stream-monitoring station where California Gulch meets the Arkansas River below the Leadville mining district. SourceWater maintains the station and its data record for the sponsoring agencies.
Live data requires a site account
Our product — for iPhone & Android
WaterTALQ
— the four factors of every water right
Your place in line. In real time.
Colorado water rights — at your fingertips. Decree details, court documents, net amounts, and transactions, tied to a live map with real-time station flow and reservoir storage — across the seven river basins the state administers as Water Divisions 1 through 7.
Live administrative calls — priority dates, admin numbers, senior & junior counts.
Every structure on the river — in or out of priority at a glance, reach by reach.
Your rights, stations & reservoirs on one dashboard — with custom alerts.
The river basins of Colorado — one app per division
Divisions 1–7 · every basin
WaterTALQ
The whole state in one app — every basin, one watchlist.
Division 1
S•PLAT
South Platte
Division 2
Ark•UP
Upper Arkansas
On the Apple App Store
Division 3
G•RIO
Rio Grande
Division 4
R•GUNI
Gunnison
Division 5
CO•RAD
Colorado
Division 6
YM•PA
Yampa
Division 7
S•J•D
San Juan & Dolores
WaterTALQ for iPhone is live on the App Store, and beta testing continues on both iOS (TestFlight) and Android. Constructive comments are rewarded with a free membership.
WaterTALQ reads directly from Colorado’s Decision Support Systems (CDSS) / DWR REST API, USGS, and USBR. It changes no official record — it’s a fast, mobile window into public data, with clear notes where a structure is administered.
Who you work with
Jord Gertson
Principal · Hydrologist & Water Resources Professional
The practice
SourceWater Consulting is led by Jord Gertson, a hydrologist and water-resources professional based in Colorado's Upper Arkansas Valley. His work spans augmentation-plan operations, stream gaging and SCADA instrumentation, dam-safety compliance, and the prior-appropriation framework that governs every drop in the basin.
Clients range from small public water systems and municipalities to private landowners managing their own rights — each served with the same combination of technical precision and plain, direct communication.
Get in touch
Whether you need an operator of record, help meeting a compliance deadline, or analysis of a water right, reach out and we'll find the right path forward.
Tell us a little about your system or your water right, and we'll get back to you with the next step.
Email SourceWater →