AURORA | Last winter may have been one of the driest in recent memory, but Aurora Water officials insist that there’s enough water in city reservoirs to meet residents’ demands.
Joe Stibrich, deputy director for Aurora Water, said this summer’s water runoff levels are as bad as levels in 2002 and 2003 that sparked a drought and provoked the city to create a drought-hardening project called Prairie Waters.
“It’s going to be a low runoff year, and very low snowpack, and Aurora is affected by that just like everyone,” said Stibrich, who is in charge of water resources for the city.
But the city has some extra protections against drought, and one of them is the city draws water from three basins — the South Platte, Colorado and Arkansas rivers.
The only other city in the state that draws water from three basins is Greeley, Stibrich said.
There is relatively little concern among water officials about the city’s water supply, they said. The city has managed its water storage levels well and stores water in 14 reservoirs throughout the state including Homestake, Spinney, Twin Lakes and Turquoise.
“We were able to enter this year higher than normal in terms of the total storage content that we’ve maintained coming into this year, so that puts us in good shape,” Stibrich said.
The reservoirs are about 85 percent full now, even though the city is only expecting to get about 30 percent of what it usually gets annually in water runoff from the mountains.
“There was just no snow up in the mountains this year,” said Greg Baker, spokesman for Aurora Water. “You always want that really big, late, wet snowstorm where it comes in March or early April and we just did not see it.”
The city’s Prairie Waters Project has also contributed to the healthy reservoir levels this year. The Prairie Waters Project, which cost about $660 million and helps ensure that Aurora residents have enough water during droughts, helped preserve the reservoir supplies in the mountains, keeping them fuller than normal.
It was running at full bore because city officials wanted to see whether there were any problems with machinery before the one-year warranty was up.
“That meant we could keep more water up in the mountains,” Baker said. “It was not the intended consequence of the warranty testing but it was a great benefit for us.”
Current water restrictions mandate that residents water their lawns no more than three days per week, and cannot water between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. any day. They can choose which days to water. Stibrich doesn’t anticipate any change being made to those restrictions, which have been in place for several years.
The water department continuously monitors the water supply and will inform residents of any changes in watering restrictions.
“We look at this in some cases on a daily basis and no less than on a weekly basis where we review where we’re at and make sure conditions haven’t changed,” Stibrich said.
Other cities aren’t faring as well as Aurora.
Northwest Colorado may be facing its worst drought in a decade. Northwest Colorado state drought planner Veva Deheza said last week the area has the worst snowpack conditions in the past decade and forecasters say they expect below-average precipitation through July.
According to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, a statewide task force has asked Gov. John Hickenlooper to elevate the response level for the Colorado, Gunnison and Yampa/White river basins under Colorado’s drought response plan.
A new state drought plan may require increased drought monitoring, followed by severe restrictions for communities facing the prospect of running out of water.
Reach reporter Sara Castellanos at 720-449-9036 or sara@aurorasentinel.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.