Centennial Water Board votes to move out of drought restrictions

BY HALEY LENA HLENA@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Following record breaking rainfall totals, the Centennial Water Board voted to remove drought restrictions. However, water conservation continues to be key for long-term sustainability.

e Centennial Water and Sanitation District provides services to Highlands Ranch and Solstice, which have been in Stage 1 drought restrictions since July 20, 2022.

e district went into drought restrictions due to the lack of water supply and three years of drought, according to Swithin Dick, water rights administrator for Centennial Water.

For the rst time since Sept. 2021, Douglas County is out of drought conditions according to the U.S. Drought Monitor released on May 16. Highlands Ranch alone received four to six inches of rain in May. “With the generous ample rains we got recently, that totally changed the situation with providing more water all over in the South Platte Basin,” said Dick. “ at rain event one, soaked up the soils and two, provided more water in the river for everyone that it enabled us to say OK, we don’t have a concern about being able to supply the community.” e record rainfall has allowed the district to capture a record amount of water, lling the storage reservoirs to near capacity. e project received nal approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in June 2020. e approval granted project participants — Centennial Water is one of eight — the right to store water in the reservoir.

According to Water Resources Manager William McLoud, the district takes water o the stream when it’s available and uses South Platte Reservoir, McLellan Reservoir and, for the rst time, Chat eld Reservoir to store the water. is allows the district to pace out the available water through the summer.

Rainfall this spring demonstrated a milestone for the Chat eld Reservoir Reallocation Project, which began in 1994.

“We had the right to store it, we didn’t have those conditions where it’s wet enough that we could store it,” said McLoud. “It’s gotta get so wet that everybody on the stream has the water they need and then we could be storing our water.”

According to a Centennial Water press release, Centennial Water’s reservoirs are at 95% of total capacity, totaling 16,463 acre feet of water. One acre foot is equal to 325,851 gallons of water.

Centennial Water gained an additional 6,922 acre feet of storage capacity, which will help the district decrease their dependence on deep nonrenewable groundwater.

Still, Centennial Water encourages residents to turn o irrigation systems momentarily as the ground is saturated.

“Of course everybody’s lawn in Highlands Ranch has gotten a good long drink, and shouldn’t need any supplemental irrigation until at least June,” said Dick.

As part of the district’s standard conservation rules, Centennial Water’s outdoor watering rules are in e ect until Sept. 30. ese rules include limiting outdoor watering to two days per week, outdoor irrigation is not allowed from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., hand watering trees and shrubs is allowed any time if hose is held or using a watering can, irrigation using water conserving methods are allowed at any time, and washing cars are allowed any time as long as a hose end shut-o device is used. e rules also include avoiding wasteful watering practices such as allowing excess water to ow into the street and neglecting to repair leaks are prohibited.

“ e purpose of the conservation measures is to minimize the times we have to go into drought restrictions and really impact people,” said Dick.

BY JARED MILLER UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO NEWS CORPS

On a typical Wednesday morning at Edge Ice Arena in Littleton, skates cut into a sparkling, freshly cleaned sheet of ice. Patrick Donnelly is standing on the bench spitting blood because his wisdom teeth were pulled the day prior. But he wouldn’t miss supporting his friends and teammates at a practice. Not for pulled teeth. Not for the mid-March snowstorm. And certainly not for his heart condition.

Hockey players have a toughness to them, but Donnelly and the rest of his crew of amateurs, all part of the Dawg Nation Hockey Foundation, aren’t afraid to share what’s in their hearts with the world.

Donnelly is here for hockey as much as he is for the community the players have built around it.

Dawg Nation started with a pass of a hat among friends more than a decade ago. Since then, the men’s league hockey team has evolved into an organization that has given away more than $4 million to those who need it most.

It all began in 2009 when the Dawgs were just 15 friends who loved playing hockey together. en, in the span of just nine days that February, three of them were diagnosed with cancer.

“Each time I would pass my hat around the room and we would go see Danny or Dave or Andy in the hospital,” Dawg Nation founder and CEO Marty Richardson said. “It wasn’t that we gave them 250 bucks, but it was the fact that they have buddies that had their back.”

All three won their battles. About a year later, Jack Kelly, a fourth member of the Dawgs, would come down with an autoimmune disease. In six months, Kelly was gone. Richardson spoke at his funeral, and it was the rst time he had lost a close friend.

“I told his three daughters, ‘I want to do something in your dad’s honor,’” Richardson added. “‘I don’t know what it is, but I want to do something.’”

Eight months later, in 2011, Dawg Nation Hockey Foundation was born. Nobody was sure, including Richardson, what it would grow to