From the Denver Water Blog:
If you’ve been following our weekly posts, you’ve seen our snowpack and precipitation graphs jump upward after the April and May snowfall. This is great news for our water supply, which had been abysmal since July 2011.
As you probably know by now, the snowpack above the diversion points in Denver Water’s watersheds ended up below the average peak at 91 percent in the Colorado River watershed and 92 percent in the South Platte River watershed. We’ve also stressed the importance of May and June weather as it will impact how much mountain snow will make its way into our reservoirs as water. The wetter the better!
So what’s new? Today at its meeting, the Denver Board of Water Commissioners voted to delay drought pricing by one month. Why? Depending on how much water makes its way to our reservoirs, we may be in a position to change our drought response from Stage 2 to Stage 1, which would remove drought pricing entirely. But, we won’t make that decision until we have a better sense of our reservoir situation and summer conditions after runoff is over in late June or early July.
The temporary drought pricing was scheduled to appear on bills beginning in June to encourage customers to use even less water and help reduce revenue loss to maintain our treatment and distribution system. We’ve seen customers use even less water, thanks to their savvy water-saving habits and letting Mother Nature take care of watering this spring. And, we believe that by delaying the pricing, the benefit to customers outweighs the revenue we may lose in June. The last thing we want to do is put drought pricing in place, just to remove it if we change direction.
While it’s too soon to move to Stage 1 drought restrictions, we will continue to closely monitor conditions and remain flexible in our response.
From The Denver Post (Nic Turiciano):
Denver Water has some good news for customers worried about the cost of keeping their lawns green: The Denver Water Board of Commissioners voted at their meeting Wednesday to delay drought pricing by one month.
Stage 2 drought pricing, which raises rates for watering and aims to encourage less usage, was supposed to go into effect June 1. Denver Water users remain under Stage 2 drought rules, which dictate that customers water their lawns no more than two times per week and adhere to a strict schedule.
Denver Water may be able to eliminate all drought pricing and watering restrictions for the 2013 summer depending on precipitation during the month of June, according to spokeswoman Stacy Chesney.
From the Fort Collins Coloradoan (Bobby Magill):
Warm and dry weather may be about to take hold again for the time being as severe and extreme drought conditions keep their grip on much of Colorado, according to a drought report issued this week from the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University.
Northern Colorado is the only bright spot in the report. Eastern Larimer, western Weld and nearly all of Denver, Boulder, Clear Creek, Gilpin and Jefferson counties are merely “abnormally dry.”
Western Larimer County is considered to be in a moderate drought.
The quickly-melting mountain snowpack in the South Platte River Basin, which includes the Poudre River, is 125 percent of normal for this time of year, the best in the state, according to U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service data.
Most of the snowpack in southwest Colorado has already melted, contributing to ongoing severe drought conditions in the San Juan Mountains and much of the Western Slope.
Extreme and exceptional drought conditions continue to plague southeast Colorado.
The National Weather Service is calling for the drought to all but disappear between Denver and Fort Collins while improving in northeast Colorado and persisting through most of the rest of the state.