Aurora meters offer water surveillance to cut use

Aurora Water doesn’t much care which two days in a week you water your lawn, amid this historic drought. 

But if your irrigation system starts up on a third day in the same week, the water world equivalent of a Flock camera is watching. The “smart” meters on every Aurora property automatically sense a spike in water use, and alert Aurora Water to confirm the violation and send out a warning or fine. 

With updates at 15-minute intervals, the meters also detect irrigation watering during hot daytime hours when that’s against the rules. 

The water surveillance, which Aurora Water officials acknowledge many of their customers might not realize exists, is one key to Colorado’s third-largest city so far achieving its water-saving goals in a year with record-low snowpack and abysmal streamflows into mountain reservoirs. Aurora says its 400,000 residents are using 27% less lawn water than in 2025, and managed a 9% cut from combined indoor and outdoor use. 

Maintaining or even improving those savings is crucial as Aurora Water’s reservoir system sits at 49% full at a time when it should be above 80%. 

Denver Water, meanwhile, has seen only about a 5% cut of water use compared with its previous five-year average among 1.5 million city and suburban customers. When Denver Water enacted twice-a-week watering restrictions in the spring, it set a target of a 20% cut from five-year average use.

Denver’s customers are doing better when using Aurora’s comparison with 2025 only, Denver officials said. 

“Versus 2025, total water use is currently down about 7% and outdoor use is down about 16%,” said Travis Thompson, Denver Water communications manager. 

Denver Parks and Recreation irrigation and conservation crews check newly installed sprinklers heads at Harvard Gulch Park on July 17, 2026. In the southwest corner of the park, nine raised heads replace 18 heads formerly covering the same space, and will rise above native grasses that use less water than traditional turf. (Michael Booth, The Colorado Sun)

The state’s largest water agency says it is encouraged by other statistics showing customers are using 21% less lawn water than they would have expected in the run of 95- to 100-degree days the Front Range experienced in July. In a summer that sits in the top 1% hottest and driest on record, the agency says, that’s a laudable savings mark.

One difference: Aurora Water spent millions of dollars in capital getting smart meters on every customer tap, while Denver Water chose to spend more of its capital speeding up replacement of aging, dangerous lead water delivery lines. Denver’s enforcement of drought restrictions to date has relied on thousands of neighbor complaints about properties watering more than twice a week, during restricted daytime hours or other violations. 

“We have a far bigger tool than they have for being able to detect when people are using water irrigation water when they’re not supposed to,” said Shonnie Cline, Aurora Water’s deputy director of water internal and external relations.

Watchdog groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union in the past have raised questions about privacy invasions from smart home devices, including electric and water meters monitored by utilities. Especially by combining information from multiple meters, hackers or other bad actors could watch patterns and learn when people are home or away, are cooking, taking showers or other personal habits. 

Cline said a better analogy than a controversial Flock camera is to see a smart water meter as a personal fitness tracker. “It gives you data and you are able to identify patterns that can improve your overall health if you make changes,” Cline said. 

Aurora points out the smart meters for every customer work both ways, as a protection from leaks and potential property damage. Customers are able to log on and track their own use at the same time the city sees it, and could recognize a home leak while away on vacation, for example. During droughts, the meters will be one key to helping maintain reservoir storage for the benefit of the whole community, Cline said.

“There is a definite footprint that goes along with the data that indicates irrigation is taking place,” Cline said. “We have that pretty locked in where we can see when somebody’s irrigating, and so that’s why it’s interesting, because even when we send a warning, people are like, ‘But I didn’t!’ And then we’ll show them the data, and they’re like, ‘OK, I can’t argue with you, right?’ “ 

Denver Water, while enjoying higher water storage rates at its mountain reservoirs that have seen better snowpack, is not satisfied with customer savings rates and is now shifting somewhat from “education” to “enforcement” mode. 

Denver had sent out nearly 3,600 warning letters but only five fines by the beginning of August. Fines will ramp up now that customers know what the rules are and Denver Water knows more about where the problem customers are, officials said. 

Aurora Water, by contrast, has issued 234 fines after sending out more than 2,500 warning letters, including 10 of the highest $2,000 fines to businesses and large irrigation consumers. Only three customers were issued a second fine at the $250 residential level, Aurora Water said, and none had been issued a third fine. Aurora’s fines total more than $70,000. 

Now that Denver Water has weeks of data on actual water use during drought restrictions, the agency can focus its communications on suburban areas with bigger lawns that haven’t cut back, said Greg Fisher, the utility’s manager of demand planning. Some of those suburban customers have no idea it’s Denver Water that collects their mountain runoff and delivers it to their local water utilities. 

With only 5,000 advanced meters installed for 250,000 taps, Fisher said, word of mouth enforcement confirmed by onsite visits from Denver Water employees will continue to be the standard for warnings and fines. 

Water flows down the South Platte River in the Jean K. Tool State Wildlife Area amidst an ongoing drought Wednesday, July 22, 2026, in Morgan County. (Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

“We continue to rely on, and I think it’s a pretty inventive idea, of letting our customers report water waste violations,” he said. “Even with the water people out on the street, we can’t be everywhere. So giving our customers the ability to report has been pretty powerful and I think effective for us.” 

Denver Water officials do not anticipate asking their board this season to approve the next drought stage that would take lawn watering down to one day a week and add other restrictions. Denver Water would have to change its rate structure again to charge more for lawn watering that does occur to make up for loss of revenue from restrictions. 

Plus, the utility thinks it’s a longer-term challenge to convince customers to change habits and stay “on board” with drought restrictions in the middle of what could be a multiyear crisis, Fisher said. 

“We have a long game,” Fisher said. “This thing’s going to last a minimum of 12 more months, in my opinion, save for some sort of record-breaking snowfall this winter. So we’re in it for the long haul. I think we need to continue to up the message as we see conditions change. But at the same time, we really need to support our customers and have them stick with us for that extended period.” 

People are capable of change, Denver Water officials said. The last drought this severe for Front Range customers was 2002. 

“Our customers are using 100 million gallons less per day this year than they did in 2002, which is just stunning,” Fisher said. “And that translates to being actually 14% higher in our reservoir storage now than we were in 2002, because of our customers’ efficiency efforts over the last quarter century. We’re feeling really good about that. And that’s with significantly more population. … 200 to 250,000 more people.”