WHEN IN DROUGHT: City eases watering restrictions from two days to three

AURORA | After public pressure and outcry over dying lawns, Aurora City Council members voted unanimously July 8 to allow residents to water their lawns three days per week instead of two.

The change comes after residents flooded city council members with requests over the past few weeks to lift city restrictions on watering lawns.

Some residents say the grass on their lawns is severely suffering because of the two-day a week watering mandate.

“My front lawn has zero shade from trees or buildings, so the turf bakes in the sun all day long,” said Aurora resident Alex Walter in an email. “I need more than a two-day watering to keep my turf from baking to a rich brown color due to intense sun exposure.”

Some homeowners aren’t watering their lawns at all anymore, said other neighbors.

“Many neighbors are giving up on their back lawns altogether,” said Aurora resident Dean Semelbauer, who lives in the Eastridge neighborhood. “There are three on our block who’ve done that simply because the two day-a-week watering isn’t enough to keep the lawn growing, so any watering they do simply increases their water bill with nothing to show for it.”

Others say the restrictions haven’t done much in the way of preserving water, since homeowners tend to over-water their lawns when they can water for two days.

“We use more water on the two days than we ever did on the three days,” said Aurora resident Jan Winget. “It is really better for the lawn to water a short time every day instead of using so much on the restricted days.”

At the direction of water department staff, Aurora City Council members  April 1 enacted two-day per week watering restrictions through September because of drought conditions. Denver also instituted two-day per week watering restrictions on April 1.

Since then, several snow and rainstorms packed more water into Colorado’s reservoirs. Denver reinstated their normal three-day per week watering schedule in late June because their reservoirs were 92 percent full. But Aurora water officials said the city’s reservoir levels still weren’t healthy enough to lift the watering restrictions though. At the end of June, Aurora’s reservoir levels were at 67 percent.

Aurora Water Director Marshall Brown said unexpected April snowfalls helped the city’s reservoir levels but drought conditions are still projected to persist in the state over the next three months, according to the U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook.

“We still need people to be very careful with their water use,” he said.