Drought Information

Current Drought Stage:

Drought and Water Shortage:

The Town of Erie takes a holistic approach that includes planning for all water shortage events. Water shortage events can occur many ways including drought, curtailment of water supplies, or an emergency in our water distribution system. Regardless of the cause, the Town has processes in place to respond appropriately to these water shortage events. These actions depend on the intensity of the shortage and are measured in four different stages shown below. Please note that the current normal stage denotes that the Town is not currently enacting any drought and water shortage stages.

The actions required by residents during these stages are voluntary in the first two stages with restrictions starting in the third and fourth stages. The restrictions are outlined in the Drought and Water Supply Shortage plan and outreach will be done about the specifics of those actions should the water shortage reach that level of intensity. Should you have questions about these restrictions when these stages are met, please reach out to Dylan King at 303-926-2871 or dking@erieco.gov. 

Drought and our Parks

You may have noticed that in each of these stages the first bullet point is a targeted reduction of water use in the town's Parks and Open Spaces. Parks and Recreation has a plan in place to meet these water use reduction goals that relies on breaking down different portions of the landscape into different categories. These categories are Category 1 "Passive", Category 2 "Passive", Category 3 "Passive", and "Active". When drought stages are enacted, the Parks and Recreation Department will begin by reducing watering times across all of the categories to reduce consumption. As the target savings reduction goals increase, the Parks and Recreation Department will shut off zones in the following order to reduce consumption:

1. Category 1 – 1st to be shut off
2. Category 2 – 2nd to be shut off
3. Category 3 – 3rd to be shut off
4. Active Programming Zones – 4th to be shut off
5. Drip irrigation systems that support planter beds – 5th to be shut off
6. Drip irrigation systems that support high valued trees – last to be shut off

The following table illustrates which of our parks has all of the respective categories. By referencing this table, you will be able to see what parts of your favorite parks could possibly be impacted by drought response.