{"id":573546,"date":"2026-04-09T08:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573546\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T08:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:56:12","slug":"golden-to-enact-drought-restrictions-joins-other-front-range-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573546\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden to enact drought restrictions, joins other Front Range cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Golden will join the growing number of metro Denver communities enacting drought restrictions<\/a> in the wake of a record-low snowpack in the Colorado mountains, city officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The city declared the first stage of drought restrictions, effective May 1, based on snowpack, below-average stream flows and forecast reservoir levels, officials said in a news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Golden\u2019s reservoir levels are currently near full, proactive reduction is necessary to preserve storage capacity in the event of a prolonged drought,\u201d city leaders said in a statement. \u201cCurrent indicators show a concerning trend that necessitates action to protect our water supply for essential needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Golden\u2019s drought restrictions<\/a> include no daytime watering between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., fixing leaks within 10 days, no water runoff or pooling from irrigation and no sprinkler overspray onto sidewalks and streets.<\/p>\n

Some watering is still allowed at any time, including hand-watering trees, gardens and plants using a hose with an automatic shutoff or a watering can; and drip irrigation for trees, shrubs and nonturf gardens.<\/p>\n

Residents and businesses who don\u2019t follow the restrictions will receive a warning, followed by escalating water service charges or penalties, city officials said. The worst offenders could face fines up to $1,000 or have their water shut off.<\/p>\n

Denver\u2019s Board of Water Commissioners<\/a> enacted similar drought restrictions in late March, followed this week by Aurora and Arvada announcing limits on outdoor watering<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thornton was the first large water provider to enact water restrictions in mid-March, and other cities declared less-restrictive \u201cdrought watches<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s snowpack<\/a> is about a quarter of where it normally is, and federal officials said in early April that the state is seeing the worst snowpack since record keeping began in 1941.\n<\/p>\n

The entire state of Colorado is now considered to be in a drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>, with the majority of the state classified as being in a severe, extreme or exceptional drought.<\/p>\n

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Golden will join the growing number of metro Denver communities enacting drought restrictions in the wake of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[130190,20743,3832,9045,1840,243218,15229,192,4142,7936,9043,2558,3,79,58967,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-573546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-arapahoe-county","9":"tag-aurora","10":"tag-colorado","11":"tag-colorado-news","12":"tag-denver","13":"tag-denver-metro","14":"tag-drought","15":"tag-environment","16":"tag-front-range","17":"tag-golden","18":"tag-jefferson-county","19":"tag-latest-headlines","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-science","22":"tag-snowpack","23":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}