AURORA | Dean Semelbauer’s lawn has gotten smaller and smaller over the years. What was once a lush, green expanse of backyard is now a small patch of grass with a few drought-resistant plants and decorative rocks. Last year, Semelbauer found it hard to keep the grass green by watering it three days per week. Since the city enacted its two-day per week watering restrictions in April, his precious patch of greenery has turned mostly brown.
“Our smaller lawn is again dying,” he said.
After public pressure by Semelbauer and other residents, Aurora City Council members voted unanimously July 8 to resume the three day per week watering schedule instead of two.
The change comes after residents flooded some city council members with requests over the past few weeks to lift city restrictions on watering lawns. Denver eased similar restrictions a couple of weeks ago, adding to the pressure.
Semelbauer said some of his neighbors have resigned their lawns to brown grass or no grass since the city enacted its two-day per week watering restrictions.
“Many neighbors are giving up on their back lawns altogether,” he said in an email. “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.”
He cringes when he drives by a home with a bunch of rocks where the lawn used to be.
“It’s just my opinion, but I don’t want the neighborhood to look like the Walmart parking lot,” he said. “We should be able to water responsibly and still maintain an attractive community.”
Some residents said their lawns were 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.” 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, other residents said.
“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.”
Although usage numbers aren’t yet available, cursory analyses shows that city residents are in fact using considerably less water than in previous years.
Council members and water department staff sympathized with those arguments, and said enough water is stored in the city’s reservoirs now to lift the water restrictions. Homeowners can choose the days they want to water, but they can’t water between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Commercial property owners are also under the same restrictions, unless they have a water irrigation permit and new turf.
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.
The city’s water utility sales revenues were $8 million lower during the months of April, May and June compared to last year.
In April 2012, when the city had a normal, three-day per week watering schedule, water utility sales were $6.3 million. In April of this year, sales were at $5.2 million. The month of May saw the lowest dip. In May 2012, sales were $10.8 million, compared to $6.2 million in May of this year. In June 2012, sales were $12.4 million, compared to $9.7 million last month.
Councilwoman Molly Markert argued at the July 8 meeting that the decline in revenues was another reason the water restrictions should be lifted. Brown said the city’s water department isn’t operated like a business in the sense that its main goal is to generate a profit.
“Water utilities are not trying to figure out how do we sell more and more of our product,” he said.
However, past city water deals include the sale of potable water to Niagara Bottling Co. and the lease of used water to Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Aurora also recently negotiated a water lease for the WISE project that will eventually grant water to 11 water providers in Douglas and Arapahoe counties in times when Aurora has additional water.
The deals are called “leases” because under Colorado law, water providers or companies are obtaining the ability to use the water over the 5-year term of the lease, but ownership of the water rights remain with Aurora. The city regularly leases water when it doesn’t have the ability to utilize it at any particular time, but by city charter, it cannot sell their water rights, Aurora Water officials say.
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. Aurora’s reservoir levels are currently at 67 percent capacity.
Reach reporter Sara Castellanos at 720-449-9036 or sara@aurorasentinel.com.