ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — While neighboring communities have implemented mandatory water restrictions after a warm and dry winter in Colorado, Englewood is the lone community in the south metro area that has not.
Englewood Utilities is the agency that provides water to the Arapahoe County city.
"We've looked at our water supply, the way our water does make it to the city of Englewood, our usage from our community, and we've determined that right now, we're at the step of voluntary restrictions," said Pieter Van Ry, director of South Platte Renew and Englewood Utilities.
The city said leaders have never once had to implement mandatory water restrictions.
Part of the reason is that while some communities rely solely on snowpack and mountain reservoirs, Englewood gets the majority of its water from the Platte River.
"Our water rights are pretty, pretty strong here in Englewood. And the second thing is, I think we've seen fairly effective voluntary water restrictions," said Englewood Mayor Pro Tem Joe Anderson.
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Recently, the Englewood City Council updated the city's code in the event that mandatory water restrictions are ever needed. There are no ways to enforce those restrictions and penalize violations, including fines.
At this point, there is no indication that Englewood will make water restrictions mandatory any time soon.
"For us and with the citizens of Englewood, that's going to be a fairly high bar to clear, since we haven't ever done it before, and it's a really data-driven decision," said Anderson. "We've had this discussion come up before, and have looked at the historical data. It does seem that when we ask the citizens to restrict their water use, it's been effective to keep the water use down enough."
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"I think some of the [municipalities] that have enacted mandatory restrictions are looking at their usage and their portfolio specific to their community. I think when we look at our community, we do have a good water supply. Much like all the other communities on the Front Range, we're concerned because of the low snow pack, and we'll be paying attention to it month over month through the course of the summer and into the fall," said Van Ry.
City officials said that while the situation for Englewood residents is stable, the voluntary restrictions are meant to help their neighbors.
"That is just solidarity with Front Range, with the other cities in the Front Range, recognizing that this is a water issue that affects everybody, and we want to just make sure that citizens are aware of the concerns that the drought brings and try to address it from a voluntary perspective," said Anderson.
Englewood's voluntary restrictions include a maximum of three days a week for watering.
Odd addresses are asked to water on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while even addresses are asked to water on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
They're asking residents to only water before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. to reduce evaporation. Residents should also water only when absolutely necessary, not when it's raining or when there are high winds.
"We are asking our community to voluntarily conserve, because that will help everybody on the Front Range. We all rely on the same mountain runoff system in order to supply our communities. So we're all in this together, and we want to be able to make sure that we're doing our part as a community as well," said Van Ry.
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