From the Fort Collins Coloradoan (Bobby Magill):
The city now has enough water supplies to lift the restrictions following big snows in April and early May, said Fort Collins Water Resources Manager Donnie Dustin. The city wants residents to conserve water, but a balance must be struck between mandatory water restrictions and voluntary water conservation measures, said Lisa Rosintoski, customer connections manager for Fort Collins Utilities.
“Restrictions are mandatory for when we’re in a shortage situation, so it’s a short-term thing,” Dustin said. “Conservation is long-term, working towards reducing that use so it’s reduced every year.”
“This by no means advocates guilt-free water use,” Dustin said. The city is recommending residents water lawns no more than one or two days each week, but it’s no longer mandatory, he said.
The lifting of the water restrictions will not affect water rates, he said. Lost revenue due to mandatory water conservation measures was not a factor in the city’s decision to lift the restrictions, Dustin said.
Meanwhile conditions are terrible in southeastern Colorado and New Mexico. Here’s a report from John Fleck writing for the Albuquerque Journal. Here’s an excerpt:
In the eight months since Oct. 1, just 0.91 of an inch of rain has fallen at the Weather Service’s Albuquerque station, less than a quarter of average and the third-driest start to the city’s “water year” since record-keeping began in Albuquerque in the late 1800s. “I’m worried that the dirt’s gonna catch fire,” said Adrian Oglesby, a member of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District’s board of directors…
While Albuquerque is one of the drier spots in the state, all of New Mexico is suffering, said Deirdre Kann at the National Weather Service’s Albuquerque office, who provided the latest numbers Thursday. “No part of the state has been spared,” Kann said. According to the weekly federal Drought Monitor, 98 percent of New Mexico is in “severe” drought, the worst conditions in the country.
“It’s forgotten how to rain down here,” said Phil King, a hydrologist at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces and water management consultant to the Elephant Butte Irrigation District. The Rio Grande through Las Cruces has been dry since last autumn. The district, which provides Rio Grande water to southern New Mexico farmers, normally starts irrigation deliveries in February or March. King and his colleagues will finally begin releasing water from Caballo Reservoir into the Rio Grande, beginning Saturday, with farmers in the famous chile-growing region of Hatch seeing their first Rio Grande water of the season, beginning Sunday or early next week, King said…
Upstream, water managers are scrambling to find enough water for farmers in the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, as well as supplies to keep enough flow in the Rio Grande to avoid problems for the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow. The district has already cut off water deliveries to some low-priority water users, and might have to curtail deliveries to other farmers as early as the middle of June as supplies run low, according to David Gensler, the agency’s water manager…
While there is a slight chance of scattered showers over southern and eastern New Mexico on Sunday, the real hope for a break in the long term pattern comes with the arrival of the summer rainy season, usually in late June or July. In that regard, the long range outlook is not encouraging. Odds favor dry conditions and persistent drought at least through the end of August, according to federal forecasters.