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KENNEY, KLEIN, AND CLARK <br />policies to deal with the crisis. This paper documents <br />the various approaches they used and evaluates if vol- <br />untary and/or mandatory restrictions were effective <br />in reducing water consumption and if so, to what <br />extent. This information is useful in a variety of ways: <br />e.g., in evaluating the effectiveness of actions taken in <br />2002; for comparing (and presumably learning from) <br />the different approaches across the eight regions; in <br />evaluating and designing future strategies for <br />drought coping; and perhaps in illuminating potential <br />opportunities for achieving longer term conservation <br />savings. This information is useful not only to water <br />managers, but to city council members and other local <br />officials called upon to design, enact, and enforce <br />emergency measures. <br />TABLE 1. Population and Growth Rates of Study Regions. <br />Municipality <br />Estimated <br />2002 <br />Population <br />Average Annual <br />Change in <br />Population <br />1999 to 2001 <br />(percent) <br />Aurora <br />289,325 <br />2.0 <br />Boulder <br />94,621 <br />-0.1 <br />Denver Water <br />1,100,000 <br />4.0 <br />Fort Collins <br />125,953 <br />2.8 <br />Lafayette <br />24,309 <br />3.2 <br />Louisville <br />18,914 <br />-0.2 <br />Thornton <br />93,363 <br />5.6 <br />Westminster <br />104,642 <br />1.7 <br />Total <br />1,851,127 <br />periods by using reservoir storage, replenished annu- <br />ally by snowmelt cascading down the mountains in <br />the late spring and early summer. However, three <br />forces have conspired in recent years to increase the <br />region's vulnerability to water shortages (Nichols et <br />al., 2001). First, Colorado emerged as the nation's <br />third fastest growing state, with an approximately 31 <br />percent population increase during the 1990s (U.S. <br />Census Bureau, 2001). Second, proposals to build new <br />water storage projects, such as the locally infamous <br />Two Forks Dam, were blocked by legal and political <br />opposition, prompting cities to service growing popu- <br />lations with existing reservoir storage and newfound <br />conservation savings, effectively reducing the regional <br />drought cushion (Luecke, 1999). Third, the state <br />enjoyed one of the longest periods of wet weather <br />since, 1929, thereby hiding the potential consequences <br />of the inevitable next drought (McKee et al., 1999). <br />The winter of 2001 to 2002 was abnormally warm <br />and dry. Precipitation throughout the first four <br />months of 2002 in the South Platte basin ranged from <br />a high of 73 percent of average in February (NRCS, <br />2002c) to a low of 31 percent of average in April <br />(NRCS, 2002d), a time of year usually characterized <br />by heavy (water laden) snows. By May 31, snowpack <br />in the two major basins serving the Front Range — <br />the South Platte and Upper Colorado — were at 23 <br />percent and 28 percent, respectively, of the long term <br />average (NRCS, 2002b). Similarly, water storage in <br />these basins had dropped to just over 80 percent of <br />the long term average, a figure that could not be sus- <br />tained very long given the low snowmelt and the com- <br />ing summer months of municipal lawn watering <br />(NRCS, 2002a). By summer, the entire state of Col- <br />orado was in an extreme drought (NOAA, 2002). <br />DROUGHT CRISIS AND RESPONSE <br />The Drought Crisis of Summer 2002 <br />Demand Management <br />Colorado is no stranger to drought, defined by the <br />state as occurring when "a normal amount of mois- <br />ture is not available to satisfy an area's usual water - <br />consuming activities" (State of Colorado, 2002). <br />Receiving an average of only 17 inches of precipita- <br />tion a year, Colorado has experienced several <br />droughts in the past 110 years of observed weather <br />data, most notably in the 1930s, 1950s, mid- 1970s, <br />and 1980 to 1981 (McKee et al., 2000). In addition, <br />tree ring reconstructions indicate that persistent and <br />severe droughts in the area were not uncommon in <br />the 19th Century (Jain et al., 2002). <br />Historically, municipalities along Colorado's north- <br />ern Front Range - the north -south string of cities <br />anchored by Denver in the rain shadow east of the <br />Rocky Mountains — have been able to withstand these <br />In response to low water storage and high demand, <br />municipalities throughout the region scrambled to <br />design and institute emergency demand management <br />programs. A May 2002 report from the Colorado <br />Water Conservation Board (CWCB) found that only <br />22 percent of the region's municipalities already had a <br />drought response plan in place (CWCB, 2000, unpub- <br />lished report). Efforts inevitably focused on restrict- <br />ing outdoor water use, particularly lawn watering, <br />which accounts for well over half of annual residential <br />water use and much more than half during the hot <br />and dry Colorado summers (Mayer et al., 1999). The <br />exact nature of the programs and the intensity of <br />their application, however, varied significantly from <br />city to city, as each municipal water system had a dif- <br />ferent level of vulnerability, and was overseen by dif- <br />ferent water agencies and local governments. While <br />JAWRA 78 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION <br />