Background
Westminster serves a total of approximately 33,000 individual accounts. The overwhelming majority (93%) of Westminster’s accounts are single family residential, however, those residential accounts only use about half of the city’s drinking water. A small number of irrigation, commercial, and wholesale accounts use proportionally much larger amounts of water and make up about 40% of total water demands.
Westminster’s water demands are lowest during the winter and grow to double or triple in the summer, which is very typical for Colorado Front Range communities. About half of the city’s treated drinking water is used outdoors to irrigate landscapes. The summer irrigation “peak” drives the size of pipes, pumps, tanks, and treatment plants. Reducing the peak through efficiency programs targeted at outdoor use, such as the city’s long-standing Garden in a Box discounts and Slow the Flow irrigation consultations, as well as newer turf replacement programs including a Lawn Removal Service, can create significant cost savings for the utility and its customers.
Over the past two decades, Westminster’s water service population increased by nearly 13,000 residents and the City added almost 130 new commercial accounts, yet total water demands have actually declined by more than 2,000 acre feet. An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover an acre of land one foot deep in water, or 325,851 gallons. An average family of four in Westminster will use about 1/3 acre-foot of water over the course of a year.
The overall decline in water use is principally the result of reductions in water use from the single family residential sector, and gradual decreases in indoor use in particular. These consistent reductions in water use, as each existing home in Westminster becomes more efficient, have more than offset the increase in water demand from new residents and businesses over the past two decades.
On-going efficient use of water returns major benefits to the city and its customers. Reducing water demand improves drought resilience by decreasing the frequency of drought restrictions, and most importantly, can reduce, defer, and potentially altogether avoid the high costs of new infrastructure.
Without the efficiency efforts of Westminster water customers since 1980, rates could have been nearly double what they are today.