DENVER — Denver Water provides water to 1.5 million people. To keep up with service long-term, they're calling on customers to reconsider when and how often they're watering their lawns.
"Many, many folks are watering at the same time," Denver Water spokesperson Todd Hartman said. "And when they do that, that puts a lot of pressure on our distribution system, our pumps, treatment plants and piping that’s under the streets. It creates a real surge of water, and that can be challenging for the system."
Hartman said the system experiences a higher level of water use on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He said max hour is 5 a.m. on Mondays.
"What that translates to is as if people were using in the neighborhood of 700 million gallons a day total in our service area," Hartman said. "That takes us back to records that were set 20 years ago. So in that one hour, they’re using water at a pace that would translate to 700-some million gallons a day, which is a lot."
Hartman said other days of the week can share some of that weight.
"The actual totals for the day on these very hot days are more in the realm of 300-325 million gallons, so you can see that if that one hour translates to a usage rate of more than twice, that it's a big stretch on the system," Hartman said.
He said there isn't concern that Denver Water can't keep up, but further down the line, continued high usage could be a problem.
"The stress on the system can result in breaks," Hartman said. "That’s when we have a pipe break in the middle of the street and it shuts down the intersection and it's a hassle and sometimes it happens at major intersections and it’s a major hassle."
Hartman theorizes this may be the case because irrigation systems are pre-set to go off on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
"Try Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday," Hartman said. "Try Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, whatever. Just change it up a little."
He said even keeping the same days, but changing up times of day, can make a difference.
"Behavior change is not expensive, and we try very hard to keep our rates low and annual increases low, and this is one more step we can take hopefully with our customers to do that," Hartman said.
As months get colder, Denver Water also recommends reducing how often sprinkler systems run from three days to two days per week.