We applaud the simple step taken last week by the Denver Water Board, lifting most of the area’s lawn watering restrictions this summer.
But the board also needs to remind the public that water conservation still matters.
After nearly a decade of drought, there’s enough snow in the northern and central Rockies to largely refill Lake Dillon and other reservoirs that supply water to Denver and half the metro area’s suburbs.
When lake levels fell a few years ago during the drought, the water board told customers it had to impose strict lawn watering restrictions to conserve the supply. The implied promise was that the restrictions would end when the lakes recovered. They have, and Denver Water kept faith with its customers by lifting the toughest rules.
But we’re not out of the woods.
Droughts happen in our region with regularity, so Denver water managers and users alike would be unwise to draw down reservoirs unnecessarily and forget that there may be dry years in the future.
So, Denver Water must send a twofold message to its customers: go ahead and keep your yards green and trees healthy, but do so carefully, and keep the conservation ethic in mind.
Denver residents are still banned from watering in the heat of the day, between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., and prohibited from letting water run down the streets.
But Denver Water won’t use the familiar diamond-circle-square schedule tied to addresses and specific days of the week. Instead, residents will be limited to watering three days per week but can choose which days.
The task facing other metro cities is even tougher. Aurora, for example, doesn’t have extensive storage capacity, and many of the reservoirs it does own or share aren’t located where the heavy snows fell last winter. Aurora doesn’t have watering restrictions in place now, but officials may impose them after April 30 if its reservoirs fall below 60 percent of capacity. Right now, Aurora’s share of water in the dozen or so lakes that supply the city varies from a respectable 89 percent to almost 0.
In recent years, local jurisdictions had to deliver a message of conservation to their customers. This summer, Denver is relatively flush, while Aurora may need to apply tougher restrictions. However, both should educate the public about the same hard fact: In our arid climate, don’t waste water – ever.
