Boulder is using aerial photographs to assign water budgets to it's property owners, according to the Rocky Mountain News. From the article, "The Boulder water department knows every patio, walkway, gazebo and square foot of grass in its customers' front and backyards thanks to satellite photos. Starting next month, it will use that information to give each customer a water budget - rewarding them for using no more water than should sustain a Kentucky blue grass lawn, charging them extra for every gallon of excess water use. Customers can go online, to boulderwater.net, to make sure the photos really are of their own yards, and that the utility, say, is up to date on that flagstone sidewalk the family removed last summer. When all the calculations are done - the concrete area subtracted from the grass area - each resident gets a water budget based on the total square footage of his or her irrigable land...
"A family living in a single-family ranch-style home may have 5,000 square feet of irrigable land. The water department figures that every square foot of grass, shrubs or flower beds needs no more than 15 gallons of water per year. None is needed in December, January or February. About 1 percent of that water budget should be used in March, another 1 percent in November. By the time June and July roll around though, each of those months probably need about 20 percent of the water budget for the entire year. So, in June, they can put three gallons on every square foot of grass - a total of 15,000 gallons. If the family stays within that limit, it pays only $1.88 per 1,000 gallons for the first 9,000 gallons in June, and $2.50 per gallon for the next 6,000 gallons. But what if there's a heat wave in July and the family uses 20,000 gallons? The family pays the same as it did in June for those first 15,000 gallons, but $5 for each extra 1,000 gallons - or a $25 surcharge for July."
Category: Colorado Water
6:57:07 AM 
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