Due to the snow drought and record heat wave, some Colorado residents are facing the first water restrictions ever imposed.
Denver Water announced Wednesday that it is seeking a 20% reduction in water use, asking people to turn off automatic irrigation systems until mid-May and limiting watering trees and shrubs to twice a week.
“The situation is really bad,” said Todd Hartman, a spokesman for the company. “We are in such a bad situation that we may return to society in two or three months saying that he is limited to one day a week.”
This is the first time in a year that Denver Water has issued a limit, Hartman said.
Colorado’s snowpack peaked at record lows on March 12 — about a month earlier than normal — and then plunged amid a recent heat wave that has cooked almost every Western state.
“We already had the lowest snowpack we’ve seen since at least 1981, and now, with the heat wave conditions, we’ve already lost about 40% of the state’s snowpack” as of March 12, said Peter Goble, Colorado’s assistant meteorologist. “Conditions look like late April or early May.”
Water restrictions are a harbinger of what’s to come in many Western states as officials try to manage drought problems. Almost all snowfields in the Mountain West had their warmest winter on record and are well behind normal when it comes to water supplies, according to the US Drought Monitor. Shrinking snowpack is likely to increase the risk of severe wildfires, disrupt power generation at hydroelectric dams and force water restrictions on farmers.
Hartman said almost every community east of the Rockies, along the front line of Colorado, is in the same boat as Denver.
Aurora City Council members are considering similar water restrictions; Lakes there are at about 58%, according to the city’s website. In the city of Erie, officials declared a water shortage emergency on March 20 after seeing a large spike in usage.
Gabi Rae, a spokeswoman for the city, said Erie is at risk of the faucets running dry because many residents have started watering their lawns early due to the uncontrollable heat.
“It was a day before we ran out of water, that’s why it was an emergency,” he said.
Erie officials demanded that residents stop using irrigation systems.
Goble said this month’s heat has set records for all parts of Colorado, sometimes in the double digits.
“I don’t remember seeing one heat wave that broke this many records, and to see it in such a large part of the country is impressive,” he said, adding: “I’m located in Fort Collins, and we hit 91 last Saturday. The previous record for March was 81, so we broke that record. And it wasn’t just one day, either.”
Denver Water, which serves about 1.5 million residents in the city and surrounding areas, gets about half of its water from the Upper Colorado River Basin and the South Platte River Basin. The latest snowpack was about 42% of normal Tuesday, the company reported. The Upper Colorado River Watershed was at 55%.
System-wide, Denver Water’s reservoirs are about 80% full, which is only 5 percent lower than a normal year.
“That sounds good,” Hartman said. “Except what we can’t count on is that running water to restore those dams, because the snowpack is very low.”
In other words, the snowpack – the natural water reservoir – is generally already depleted and will not fill the reservoirs later this spring and summer, when runoff tends to be higher.
In Erie, city workers plan to aggressively use water through next week using smart meters that monitor residential use. Rae said the city is also sending construction crews to patrol areas and check for open sprinklers.
“People were upset with how aggressive we were, and I don’t think they understood the consequences if we weren’t,” Rae said. “It’s a really serious emergency. We were very close to coming up empty, there would be no water from the taps – hospitals, schools, fire services, your home would not have water.”
Although outdoor watering restrictions will soon be lifted, Rae expects more restrictions later this spring and summer.
