Aurora, Colorado is primarily a residential community of 300,000 people in the eastern
Denver metropolitan area. The service population is expected to exceed 500,000 people
in the next thirty years and the City's utility, Aurora Water, has been charged with
increasing the reliability of the current water system as well as providing for the water
needs of the future community. The highly variable yield productivity of the City's water supply system has been
demonstrated by system performance in the drought conditions experienced in Colorado
and the western United States since 2002. While average annual precipitation in the City
is about 12 inches (300mm), conditions in 2002 caused extremely low water supply
conditions estimated to occur only once in 300 years.
The wet water supply conditions of the late 20th century were not prototypical of the long
term water conditions in Colorado and the stress on the yields in the last 4 years must be considered by the Utility as more representative of what could be observed in the future
as it acquires new water sources and constructs the delivery systems and treatment plants
that will be necessary.
Aurora Water has implemented highly productive and comprehensive water conservation
programs to reduce customer demands, especially during the outdoor irrigation season
when typically half the annual water demand occurred to sustain lawns and trees. The
Utility also acquired permanent and interruptible water supplies from agricultural uses to
augment the low yield productivity of the core water rights portfolio. A combination of
demand management and new source development approaches have provided near-term
relief and allowed for recovery of carryover storage levels in the City's reservoirs.
Continued growth, however, will exacerbate the projected shortages of available water
supplies and so the Utility has initiated a long-term integrated water supply program to
ensure that adequate service can be provided to customers even under sustained drought
conditions. A comprehensive assessment of the reliability of the water supply system,
including core infrastructure, has led Aurora Water to develop a 10 Year Capital
Improvements Program exceeding $1.4 billion in system improvements and expansions
to serve the community's needs. It has also embarked on a major expansion of the raw
water supply system by recovering reusable return flows downstream from the City and
expanding new agricultural water leasing programs to provide supplemental yield in
drought years. The City is also acquiring new water rights, largely through transfers of
agricultural water sources, to provide firm yield.
As new sources of water are developed on river systems downstream from a major
metropolitan area, the Utility is implementing multiple-barrier water treatment
approaches to protect public health and meet demanding acceptance levels from a
customer base that has traditionally been served from first-use mountain water sources.
This investment by the community is causing significant and sustained increases in water
user rates and connection fees because the Utility provides services on a "cost-of-service"
basis and by Colorado's Constitution, cannot access alternative tax sources to reduce the
required increases in utility bills.
This confluence of natural events, level of service and growth, a fundamental shift from
development to reallocation of previously developed beneficial water uses and local
funding of required capital improvements creates many challenges for today's Utilities
Director. This paper describes how Aurora Water is progressively addressing these
challenges in providing adequate levels of service to current customers while positioning
the community for future needs. Includes figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 2.4 MB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 13 |
| Published : | 06/01/2006 |
