Image
News Article
Mayday, mayday — stay away from your sprinklers
With record-low snowpack, Denver Water implores customers to wait on irrigation activation.
Gentlemen and gentlewomen, STOP your engines. Engines, in this case, being your automatic outdoor sprinkler systems.
In the face of one of its worst snowpacks in nearly 50 years of record-keeping, Denver Water is asking customers to keep automatic irrigation systems off until at least mid-to-late May, and even later if conditions warrant.
With snowpack at or near record lows in its high-country collection system, the utility’s leaders are stressing the importance of keeping automatic sprinkler systems off until at least mid-to-late May in order to keep as much water as possible in the reservoirs — in case this winter’s record-dry stretch deepens into a multiyear drought.
“We’re imploring our customers to hold off on setting and activating their sprinkler system,” said Greg Fisher, manager for demand planning and efficiency. “Generally, our customers are great about waiting until at least around May 1. We are asking them, in this very dry year, to wait at least a few weeks longer to reduce the drain on our reservoirs.”
Get tips from CSU Extension on hand-watering trees and plants during long, dry winter stretches.
Denver Water’s annual summer watering rules run from May 1 to Oct. 1. While the utility’s Board of Water Commissioners hasn’t yet formalized additional watering restrictions, the likelihood of such action is high this year as the winter continues to lag dramatically in mountain snowpack. The commissioners are expected to evaluate the situation in March and could determine at that point that additional steps are needed to preserve water supplies, including watering limits for Denver Water customers this spring and summer.
“While February brought some needed mountain snow, it was only enough to keep us from falling further behind our already steep deficit,” said Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s manager of supply. “We always hope that March, April and May come through, but we can’t count on that. We have to prepare for conditions that will leave our reservoirs shorter on supply than usual.”
Find out what you can do, inside and outside, to reduce water use, at denverwater.org/Conserve.
Data suggests that many customers already wait beyond May 1 to start their automatic outdoor watering systems. Consumption figures suggest that while many customers do increase their watering in April, much of that is likely hand watering as we enter the spring planting season.
Put another way, the average daily use between April 1 and May 15 is 137 million gallons per day. From May 15 to June 1, that average increases to 195 MGD.
More evidence that customers tend to move from hand-watering to turning on automatic sprinkler systems in mid-May can be found in time-of-day data.
Last year, for example, early morning use jumped up around May 18, a result of irrigation timers set for the dawn hours, when most people set their irrigation systems to operate to stay in compliance with standard summer watering rules that do not allow irrigation between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Image
All that data suggests that many customers already hold off on irrigation activation until mid-May and even June.
Activating automatic sprinkler systems later isn’t unusual for another reason: During many years, healthy springtime rains mean customers who are watching the weather can delay sprinkler turn-ons until early June. Of course, forecasting that far out isn’t possible, but should this spring produce good rainfall, that would be another good reason to hold off on setting irrigation systems.
“This spring, even more than in other years, it’s critical that customers really pay attention to the weather,” Fisher said. “A wet spring would really help with water conservation, as customers can let Mother Nature provide the water and give our reservoirs a reprieve.”
Image
