DENVER — Mother Nature is being very generous this year.
Record-setting rain totals this year means landowners and municipalities, alike, are enjoying some serious savings on their water bills.
In a press release Thursday, Denver Water said customers hadn't used this little water in the month of June since 1969. And many reservoirs are full.
“We just got our water bill from Denver Water,” said Scott Gilmore, deputy executive director of Denver Parks and Recreations. “Last year’s [June] bill was $590,00. This year was $340,000. Saved us a quarter million dollars over the entire park system.”
Other municipalities report savings of their own.
The City of Golden also still saw measurable savings.
“In general, the places we’re doing irrigation, the parks, the golf course, we’re seeing about – only using about a third of the water we usually use,” said Anne Beierle, public works director for the city.
“While we’re not as big as some other jurisdictions, there’s been measurable savings. We’ve spent about $50,000 less in May and June than we did in previous three years.”
A spokesperson for the City of Lakewood said that city’s parks department has saved millions of gallons and approximately $275,000 in potable water use in 2023 compared to 2022. The city also said Lakewood’s Homestead Golf Course has used significantly less water but also hosted thousands more rounds of golf this year compared to last.
Denver Parks credits new technology, rolled out over the past decade, helps them avoid running sprinklers more than needed. The department controls irrigation at parks through a centralized, computer-run system.
“When the [monitoring] water meter on the roof hits half an inch, it shuts off all irrigations systems in this area, so this year that’s how we’ve been able to save quarter million dollars – it’s all working automatically.”
But Mother Nature doesn’t just give. She takes, too.
For all the money saved on water this summer, storms also cost money.
“Every time we get a storm, we have some challenges with hail,” said Keith Reester, public works and utilities director for the City of Littleton.
“In our case we’ve got a couple of sinkholes out there, we wouldn’t be dealing with those without this rain. It’s been a change on that side of the ‘house.’”
He said Littleton has saved tens of thousands of dollars so far in water costs and was able to delay turning on irrigations systems for several weeks this summer.
“Just like in any year, we have long term plans. Were just going to move parts and pieces around the checkerboard to get them in the right place.”
No matter how much water Colorado is enjoying today, summer seasons isn’t even halfway over.
“We budget $3-3.5 million for water in the parks department [annually]. But it’s been pretty dry the last few years, so we’ve gone over budget,” Gilmore said about Denver. “What this allows us to do is, hopefully, come in closer to our target budget and hopefully we don’t have to ask for supplemental to offset our budget. Because we will have to water at some point.”
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