Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman suggested the local school district has been watering its grass \u201cin defiance of Aurora’s current Stage I drought water restrictions,\u201d after he noticed multiple schools had \u201cvery green\u201d lawns. Coffman\u2019s statement, which he shared Tuesday via Facebook<\/a>, included a photo of a green lawn<\/a> outside Rangeview High School, which is part of Aurora Public Schools.<\/p>\n \u201cAurora Public Schools have been paying fines for not complying with our Stage I drought restrictions, but we are now teetering on having to move to Stage II drought restrictions that, if enacted, will reduce all outdoor irrigation from two waterings a week down to one, killing off most lawns completely,\u201d Coffman wrote.<\/p>\n The mayor said he plans to address these concerns during a Friday meeting with the Aurora Public Schools\u2019 superintendent. He went on to suggest the school district could have its water shut off if officials don\u2019t comply with the drought restrictions.<\/p>\n \u201cMy position is that if Aurora Public Schools doesn’t make a commitment, during Friday’s meeting, to become compliant, that Aurora Water immediately shut off supplying all water, used for outside irrigation, to the school district until all drought restrictions are lifted,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Nine Aurora Public Schools sites are out of compliance with drought restrictions, Shonnie Cline of Aurora Water told FOX 31<\/a>. That includes schools and administrative buildings.<\/p>\n \u201cThey definitely are in a position where they want to be able to get those nine sites back into compliance and compliance across the entire system,\u201d Cline added.<\/p>\n Corey Christiansen, a public information officer for Aurora Public Schools, said the district takes the ongoing drought \u201cvery seriously\u201d and recognizes it must \u201cwisely use our limited water resources.\u201d He also said the district has not received or paid any fines from Aurora Water. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have worked with Aurora Water since drought restrictions were first put in place. It approved our plan, which includes reducing water usage by 20% and limiting outdoor watering to two days per week. As Mayor Coffman mentioned in his post, we only learned of a possible concern on Monday and are working closely with Aurora Water to address any concerns,\u201d Christiansen told The Independent.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to emphasize that one photo from one school site does not represent our district\u2019s overall water usage. We are proud of our extremely dedicated maintenance team that works hard to keep our school grounds in the best shape possible for our community. We look forward to continuing to work with Aurora Water as engaged environmental stewards.\u201d<\/p>\n The Independent has reached out to Aurora Water for comment.<\/p>\n Much of Colorado is suffering from \u201csevere drought conditions\u201d this year, caused by \u201cunprecedented low snowpack and high temperatures,\u201d according to the state\u2019s agriculture department<\/a>. As a result, local leaders throughout the state are implementing water restrictions.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause most precipitation in Colorado\u2019s mountains falls as snow, the accumulation and gradual melting of snow determines how much water enters rivers, reservoirs, farms, and cities each year. In fact, 83 percent of Colorado\u2019s water originates as snow or rain,\u201d the Colorado Department of Agriculture\u2019s website states<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-754771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754771","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=754771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Aurora](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/741285089_2057663701494255_8263647271596831259_n.jpeg\")
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said some Aurora Public Schools buildings, including Rangeview High School, had ‘very green’ grass and suggested the district is watering its lawns ‘in defiance of Aurora’s current Stage I drought water restrictions’ (Mike Coffman)<\/p>\n