Longmont will not be hasty in clamping mandatory water restrictions on residents even as neighboring cities are already considering such drastic measures, Longmont City Council was told Tuesday night.
Deputy City Manager Dale Rademacher said Longmont would rather ask residents to voluntarily conserve water use during the summer. Calling for mandatory restrictions, so early in the season, makes residents wary of any conservation messages coming out of the city, Rademacher told the council.
“If you cry wolf every year, nobody is going to believe you,” Rademacher said. “We don’t want to put on mandatory restrictions in place until such time we really need it.”
Longmont’s drought plan for 2021 was approved by the city council Tuesday night. The plan included a check list of actions officials could take should dry conditions force higher than normal water use.
Currently, the city is not considered in a drought scenario as a combination of supply and available storage exceeds projected demands by more than 135%, Ken Huson, Longmont's water resources manager, told the city council.
In fact, Huson said, most of the mountain snowpacks that feed Longmont’s water supplies are above average due to heavy spring snow. “We saw some good moisture this spring,” Huson told the council.
Longmont also largely dodged the impacts of drought in the Colorado River Basin and the environmental damage caused by the wildfires that devastated mountain areas northwest of the city, he said.
One of those fires — the Cameron Peak Fire — pumped ash and sediment into the water supplies of Fort Collins, Greeley and Loveland, Rademacher said. Fort Collins is on water shortage watch, a voluntary measure to conserve water. The next stage would be mandatory restrictions on outdoor water use, according to the Coloradoan.
Rademacher said the city is not close to taking such drastic steps. “We are not in a crisis. But we also can’t wait for a crisis.”
