AURORA | Green lawns at some Aurora schools have provoked threats of a water shut-off from Mayor Mike Coffman.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Coffman accused Aurora Public Schools of violating drought restrictions to irrigate school properties and having to pay fines for the alleged violations. Coffman said he is considering shutting off water for outdoor irrigation for the district if it continues to violate restrictions.
“While driving past Rangeview High School, I noticed that all of their lawns were very green meaning that they were being watered in defiance of Aurora’s current Stage I drought water restrictions,” Coffman’s post says. “The following morning, I drove by six other schools in the Aurora Public School system, and their lawns were also all very green.”
Coffman said he plans to meet with Aurora Public Schools Superintendent Michael Giles on Friday and will seek a commitment from the district to comply or else “immediately shut off supplying all water, used for outside irrigation, to the school district until all drought restrictions are lifted.”
However, the school district pushed back against Coffman’s claims. A district spokesperson said APS has a specific irrigation plan that was approved by Aurora Water and which reduces the district’s annual water usage by 20% and limits outdoor watering to two days per week.
“We take the ongoing drought very seriously, and know that we, like all Aurora organizations and residents, must wisely use our limited water resources,” said APS spokesperson Corey Christiansen.
Christiansen said the district has not received or paid any fines for violations. He said the district learned of Coffman’s concerns on Monday and plans to continue working with Aurora Water to comply with restrictions.
“We want to emphasize that one photo from one school site does not represent our district’s overall water usage,” he said. “We are proud of our extremely dedicated maintenance team that works hard to keep our school grounds in the best shape possible for our community. We look forward to continuing to work with Aurora Water as engaged environmental stewards.”
Shonnie Cline, deputy director of Aurora Water, confirmed the school district is part of the irrigation user variance program, which allows large water users more flexibility in when they can irrigate, while still limiting irrigation to two times per week and not during 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
“They can pick any day of the week they want to water on, but they can’t water any single zone more than two days a week,” Cline said.
The variance program also sets irrigation performance efficiency standards and requires an overall 20% reduction in annual demand.
Cline also confirmed that the school district has not been fined nor received warnings, though the district does have nine properties, including Rangeview High School, which Coffman called out, that are increasing in water use and at risk of noncompliance. Cline said water department staff are working with the district to bring the sites back into compliance.
“For those nine sites, (the district) is getting notified … and what will happen is, once they’re outside of the variance program, they’ll receive a warning and they’ll have three days to correct it, and if they don’t make the corrections then they will be subject to a violation and fines,” she said.
The other sites include William Smith High School, East Middle School, an elementary school, Aurora Academy, Vista Peak Prep and three administrative buildings. The district has 61 total sites on its account.
Cline said the district has been a good partner and she believes they will address the issue swiftly.
“We are not concerned that they won’t address it,” Cline said. “All things are pointing to that they are eager to be able to get those systems back into compliance.”
In general, violations of drought restrictions first trigger a warning that residential users have seven days to address, while multi-family and commercial users have three days. If the issue is not resolved, then violators face an escalating series of fines.
For multifamily and commercial users, fines start at $250 and go up to $2000. Residential fines range from $125 to $500.
For persistent violations, Cline said the city can shut off the water supply.
“That means we have absolutely gone through every possible option to get them into compliance,” she said.
Cline said Colorado’s water supply situation is “bad,” but officials are hoping to avoid increasing drought restrictions, though it requires “everybody doing every single possible thing that they can to conserve water.”
“We’re taking it so seriously because we don’t know what the future holds,” Cline said.