Denver Water Water Restrictions 2026

Denver Water's supply portfolio is unusual for a Colorado Front Range utility because it spans the Continental Divide. Roughly 50% of Denver's annual water comes from the Colorado River basin (West Slope) via two major transmountain diversions: the Moffat Tunnel (which feeds Gross Reservoir) and the Roberts Tunnel (which feeds Dillon Reservoir). The remaining 50% comes from South Platte River native East Slope flows captured at Cheesman Reservoir, Strontia Springs, and a network of foothill diversions.

This East-West dual supply gives Denver Water more drought buffer than utilities relying on a single basin, but both basins are now under sustained pressure. The 2025–2026 winter snowpack measured just 55% of normal across both the South Platte and Colorado River basins. Total Denver Water system reservoir storage sits at approximately 47% of seasonal target as of May 2026 — well below the ~80% threshold that triggers Stage 1 review. Dillon Reservoir, the system's largest single asset at over 257,000 acre-feet of capacity, is at roughly 53%. Gross Reservoir, where Denver Water's Gross Reservoir Expansion Project is mid-construction to add 77,000 acre-feet of additional storage, is at 62%.

Denver Water's nine major reservoirs — Dillon, Williams Fork, Strontia Springs, Cheesman, Antero, Eleven Mile Canyon, Marston, Gross, and Ralston — together provide approximately 750,000 acre-feet of system storage when full. Cumulative drawdowns across three consecutive below-average snowpack years have brought the system to its lowest May 1 storage in over a decade. Snowpack and reservoir conditions are monitored continuously and form the basis for the Board's decision to escalate from Stage 1 toward Stage 2 if summer rainfall does not materialise.

Denver Water was founded in 1918 when the City and County of Denver acquired the privately-held Denver Union Water Company. The utility has operated continuously as a municipal quasi-governmental agency since then, governed by a Board of Water Commissioners specifically structured to insulate water-supply decisions from short-term political cycles — board members serve six-year terms, longer than any single mayoral term, and the Board has taxing and bonding authority independent of the City Council.

The utility employs approximately 1,100 staff across treatment plants, distribution operations, dam safety, water-rights legal work, and customer service. Headquartered at 1600 W 12th Avenue in Denver, Denver Water also operates the Marston Treatment Plant, the Foothills Treatment Plant, the Moffat Treatment Plant, and a network of pump stations and pressure zones distributed across the foothills.

Importantly, Denver Water's 1.5 million customers do not all live within the City and County of Denver. The utility provides retail water service directly to Denver residents and provides wholesale or distributor service to eight surrounding municipalities: Lakewood, Littleton, Centennial, Wheat Ridge, Greenwood Village, Sheridan, Glendale, and Edgewater. Each of those cities then bills its own residents — but the underlying watering rules, stage declarations, and drought pricing originate at Denver Water and apply uniformly across the service area. This is why a homeowner in Lakewood receives the same Stage 1 watering schedule as a homeowner in central Denver.