Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman accuses schools of flouting water restrictions, district says they're paying for more

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman is questioning whether one of the city's two school districts is doing enough to conserve water, but the district says it's not that simple.

When Coffman drove by and noticed how green the grass was at Rangeview High School, he investigated why. He drove by six other schools in the district, then posted on Facebook, accusing Aurora Public Schools of watering "in defiance of stage one water restrictions."

Indeed, this school used more water than it should have for irrigation, but Aurora Public Schools says that doesn't mean the district is flouting the law.

"Context is again really important on this one," said Shonnie Cline, deputy director of internal and external affairs for Aurora Water.

Coffman said the city could shut off the water if it chooses to shut off irrigation meters at schools. But Aurora Water says that outcome isn't very likely.

"We wouldn't want to turn off water to the schools themselves," said Cline.

In a statement, Aurora Public Schools said, "We take the ongoing drought very seriously and know that we, like all Aurora organizations and residents, must wisely use our limited water resources. We have worked with Aurora Water since drought restrictions were first put in place. They approved our plan, which includes reducing water usage by 20% and limiting outdoor watering to two days per week."

The district also says it hasn't received any fines from Aurora Water.

"We want to emphasize that one photo from one school site does not represent our district's overall water usage," APS asserted. "We are proud of our extremely dedicated maintenance team that works hard to keep our school grounds in the best shape possible for our community. We look forward to continuing to work with Aurora Water as engaged environmental stewards."

Aurora Water says the issue is a little more complicated than it may seem. APS is a part of its variance program.

"Large irrigators have huge areas that they have to try to get irrigated. And we will allow people, if they request it, to go into a variance program when they have these huge areas," said Cline.

That means they are allowed to water any day of the week they want, but they're not allowed to water any zone more than two days a week. They are also given parameters on how much water they can use.

But at nine of the district's 61 sites, more water was used than necessary, Aurora Water says. So APS has paid more surcharges, not fines.

"Everybody that has an irrigation account gets charged a drought surcharge from literally the very first gallon. So, it is not because they're doing anything wrong. We have drought surcharges in place like Denver Water and other locations so we can maintain revenue neutrality. But also, it is so that it is a financial incentive for all of the people that are irrigating to use less water," said Cline.

The mayor also mentioned that Aurora is "teetering on having to move to stage II drought restrictions."

Aurora Water says in theory, they could go to the city council and recommend a stage two water restriction, but they aren't at that point yet.

One thing affecting the state's water supply is all the fires burning across Colorado right now. They are threatening the infrastructure at reservoirs that deliver water to municipalities and the water quality in those reservoirs. Also, the water drawn from their reservoirs to fight those fires will affect the supply.