“We have now in code what is our large water user guide. It effectively prohibits any (new) user that is going to be an extremely large water user.”
AURORA, Colo. — As Colorado heads into worsening drought conditions, water providers across the metro area haven taken different approaches to managing large water users.
The contrast comes as the region faces one of its lowest snowpack years on record, raising concerns about supply heading into the summer months.
Nathan Elder with Denver Water said conditions are already concerning.
“What we’re seeing right now is not good,” Elder said. “This is the 2nd-worst snowpack that we’ve seen for this time of year.”
Denver Water is preparing for mandatory restrictions as a result, with limits on outdoor watering set to begin March 25. The agency serves about 1.5 million people in Denver and surrounding suburbs and relies heavily on mountain snowpack to refill reservoirs.
“We’re going to be supply limited, and we don’t have the snowpack to fill the reservoirs,” Elder said. “We’re going to have to ask our customers to conserve water and we’re going to have to go on mandatory water restrictions.”
Under those restrictions, customers will be limited to watering outdoors two days per week, marking the first time since 2013 that additional limits beyond typical summer rules have been implemented.
When it comes to large water users, including data centers and golf courses, Denver Water applies the same rules across the board. Denver Water said there are about 15 data centers in its system, most using roughly 10,000 gallons of water per day, an amount the utility says is comparable to other commercial customers.
Denver Water said data centers vary widely in size and that overall usage in its service area is “on par with the average commercial customer.”
During drought conditions, Denver Water said it seeks a 20% reduction across all customers. If drought pricing is implemented, both residential and nonresidential users, including data centers, would be subject to the same rate structure.
Meanwhile, while Denver applies broad conservation measures to all customers, Aurora is implementing targeted restrictions.
Shonnie Cline with Aurora Water said the city’s large water user guide directly limits future high-demand development.
“We have now in code what is our large water user guide,” Cline said. “It effectively prohibits anybody that is going to be an extremely large water user.”
Cline said that policy has already influenced which projects are allowed in the city, including data centers.
“We do have some data centers that have recently come into our service territory,” Cline said. “And the reason why they’re able to come in is that they’re not using evaporative cooling.”
Evaporative cooling systems can consume large amounts of water and are fully consumptive.
“Evaporative cooling does use a tremendous amount of water,” Cline said. “The water doesn’t go back into the system.”
Denver Water said it does not have a policy similar to Aurora’s large water user restrictions and that questions about city-specific codes would need to be directed to the City and County of Denver.
Aurora has also taken steps to limit other high-demand uses. Cline said the city is no longer allowing new golf courses because of their water needs.
“Just because they’re large water users,” she said.
Aurora has built a roughly 20% reduction into its drought response through allocations and potential surcharges, while Denver relies on system-wide restrictions applied equally to all users.
At the same time, Denver officials are beginning to examine the broader impact of data centers. The mayor recently announced a moratorium on new data centers in the city as leaders study their effects on resources and environmental output.
Denver Water said it recognizes data centers present “new and complex issues” and will continue evaluating their impact on water delivery and infrastructure as the industry grows.