Kids enjoy the water at the Dancing Fountain in the Mill Street pedestrian area in this Aspen Daily News file photo. The fountain won’t be dancing this summer as long as stage 3 water restrictions are in place.
Aspen Daily News file
The city of Aspen will enter a stage 3 water shortage for the first time since the city adopted a formal drought mitigation plan in 2020.
The new restrictions will limit residential watering schedules even further. The Aspen City Council voted to declare a stage 3 water shortage during a meeting on Tuesday night, nearly eight months after it entered stage 2 water restrictions.
The city’s drought response committee recommended the new restrictions because, since a stage 2 water shortage was declared, “conditions within Aspen, the Maroon and Castle Creek drainages, and the Roaring Fork Valley have degraded significantly,” according to a memo sent to the city council ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.
Irrigation will be restricted to two days per week. Water users with even home addresses can irrigate on Tuesdays and Fridays, while those with odd home addresses can irrigate on Wednesdays and Saturdays. No outdoor water use will be allowed between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
New turf from seed or sod can be watered for up to 21 consecutive days after it is planted. Other new plants are allowed to be watered on the day they are planted.
Residential swimming pools and hot tubs, and other existing water features cannot be filled or refilled using city water.
The city’s Ki Davis and Dancing fountains will not be operated during the stage 3 shortage.
Noncommercial car washing is not allowed, nor is the washing of sidewalks, driveways, parking areas, tennis courts, patios or other paved areas unless for the purposes of health and human safety.
Athletic fields, the Aspen Golf Course and other public parks with active recreation areas will “manage and run their systems with extreme care and efficiency,” according to the memo, “in order to preserve the safety of play, community goods, and be responsible stewards of tax-payer dollars.”
The city’s highest-tier water customers will see temporary rate increases. Tier III water customers will see a 50% rate increase and tier IV customers will see a 125% rate increase while the stage 3 water shortage is in effect.
City staff recommended increasing the rate of the highest-tier customers “because of the outsize impact of their usage relative to the system,” according to the memo.
Residential accounts that fell under tier IV usage in July 2025 represented 15% of active water customers, but drove almost 40% of total water consumption, according to the city.
Councilman Bill Guth voted against the declaration. He has frequently argued that the city’s punitive measures under the water shortage declarations were not strict enough to effectively change the behavior of the city’s highest water users. He suggested implementing steeper fines for water customers who use more than they’re allowed.
“There are so many people that I think fall into these higher tiers that aren’t processing their own bills for their house, and the people that are processing the bills for their house or their commercial property or whatever aren’t going to make the link to behavior change,” Guth said. “That’s ultimately why I’m saying that I don’t think that this is effective and it’s just punitive and not where we should be putting our efforts.”
Aspen Utilities Director Erin Loughlin Molliconi said the city has not seen the highest water users fully respond to the measures in the past because “we have a customer base that is pretty diverse, and a lot of people are rather insensitive to financial triggers.” But she’s hoping this year will be different, especially as the city ramps up its enforcement measures for those water users who violate the restrictions.
After a stage 1 water shortage was declared in June 2025, the city refined an automated reporting system that reviews customer accounts and collects data on excessive water use.
In 2025, the city focused on issuing warnings to water users found to be in violation. Now, it’s beginning to issue formal notices of violations and collecting fines for repeat violations, the Aspen Daily News previously reported.
The new restrictions are meant to reduce system-wide water demand by 15-25%. The restrictions will begin May 15.
“As drought becomes more commonplace, the water reduction goals of each stage must be met to avoid an emergency situation,” the memo says.