AURORA | Aurora lawmakers on Wednesday voted to scale down restrictions on residents watering their lawns in response to rebounding water levels at the city’s reservoirs.
The council voted in February to limit residents to two days of lawn watering per week rather than three, reflecting the fact that the city had less than 30 months’ worth of water stored between its reservoirs and the snowpack at the time.
But with the ample rain that has fallen since then, and the decision of residents not to irrigate outdoor landscaping, Aurora Water on Wednesday asked the council’s permission to ease the restrictions.
“At this time, we are comfortable recommending to council that we restore normal watering conditions,” said Marshall Brown, director of Aurora Water. “We feel that we’re in good shape for the remainder of this year and prepared well headed into next year.”
Brown said the city’s reservoirs were about 85% full as of Wednesday. Though opponents of the restrictions questioned whether the policy had any impact, Brown said the actions of Aurora Water customers meant outdoor water use had been below average and said the majority of single-family homes complied with the rules.
Council members Curtis Gardner and Danielle Jurinsky took the opportunity to slam the utility for asking the council to limit outdoor water use in the first place. Jurinsky argued that the city should refund the surcharges paid by some residents who used significantly more water than they did on average between December and February.
She also criticized the city’s messaging around water conservation and questioned why the city was asking residents to cut back while also maintaining the spacious “Great Lawn” outside of the Aurora Municipal Center.
“The ‘rules for thee, but not for me’ type government doesn’t work for me,” Jurinsky said. “This rain season was definitely due to God, not Marshall Brown.”
Gardner said he would support a bill suggested by Jurinsky refunding the surcharges, which Jurinsky said total around $600,000.
Councilmember Alison Coombs responded to Jurinsky to say that the restrictions were introduced in response to the water shortage that the city was experiencing at the time and that one year of rainfall did not negate ongoing problems of water scarcity.
“I think it was the responsible and right decision to make at that time. And for the people who chose to turn on their irrigation systems … knowing that surcharges were coming forward, that was a choice they made,” Coombs said. “You’ve been living here just as long as I have. We’ve been in a drought for our entire lives.”
Mayor Mike Coffman also brought up how nearly half of the city’s water goes to outdoor irrigation, and the city doesn’t get that water back. He argued that man-made climate change was a reality and that the city needed to deal with the related problem of water scarcity by conserving.
The council voted unanimously to roll back the enhanced restrictions on lawn watering to allow watering as often as three times per week. Residents will still be limited to watering outside the hours of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. until Sept. 30.
Better to prepare for the worst and adjust for the surprise than the other way around.
As far as Coombs’ comments regarding the consequences of choices, she should heed her own words the next time she trots out her apologist narrative for every criminal, illegal immigrant, and drug-addled miscreant in society.
How dare you. Your racist remarks are not representative of Aurora.
The other council member who is speaking for G-d should stay in his lane. Allison is correct!!
So how is the comment racist? No race was mentioned, no inference that one race was inferior to another.
I can only conclude that you have no argument and resorted to the race card in a feeble attempt to quash discussion.
Margaux read the comment and sees race in it. Only a true racist sees the world in these terms while reading a comment that dosen’t mention anything about race in the first place.
Margaux’s racist world view does not belong in Aurora. How dare you.
Council Coombs, patently for sure and I suspect others on council have no concept of the unqualified formula’s premise the city water department developed to surcharge citizens. This city water manager concept of winter – summer water ratio per household was a perverse disservice to water users. You have to be curious if half of these council folks that vote on this law have any lawn, trees, and flowers to deal with or live in an 4th story high density apartment somewhere overlooking a vast site of a RTD parking lot.
Not a lot of factual basis of this water fairness surcharge, from household to household, not one. That formula would work if everyone has the same about of people living in every house using the same gallons in the trial winter period. Then the summer usage we all start at the same calculated starting line. Of course, any single person in the winter will use less, his gallons ratio out of the gate for any usage will be higher no mater what he does. In other words, all single-family households are not equal, but using the city water department’s illusionary concept, a presumption they are.
And then, with superb predictability – “how dare you” shows up. Who would have thought an opinion in city water politics – would be the newest source of agonizing sensitivity.
A Westword article in 2012 stated
“Aurora’s city council has agreed to offer waivers and rebates of city taxes up to $502,500 to the California-based Niagara Bottling, according to the Aurora Sentinel. The company hopes to construct a plant at ProLogis Park that would create up to 36 jobs, the Sentinel reports. Niagara would use about 300,000 gallons of water a day, which city officials say is less than one percent of Aurora’s total water production. “
https://www.westword.com/news/auroras-award-winning-water-to-be-bottled-and-sold-by-california-company-5858110
Does the Aurora water department use the three tier usage offset equation in the summer to charge Niagara for water. Or has the city decided in not having any surcharge to this company? Did the city staff consider this as a factor of total water the city uses? Is it possible, the city has been fleecing citizens with their reschedule scheme.
Yes, one comment. Where is my surcharge refund? Seriously – I’m tired of being bilked by our utilities. There is no fiscal accountability to the end users. I want my money back for groceries and gas.