Puebloans will be restricted to watering their lawns twice a week in March and April, but a drought-rate price structure probably won't take effect until May, the Board of Water Works said Tuesday.

Under the plan beginning March 1, single-family homes and duplexes with addresses ending in odd numbers will be able to water Wednesday and Saturday each week; and even-numbered addresses on Thursday and Sunday.

Multi-family dwellings, homeowners' associations, mobile home parks, commercial and industrial users may water Tuesday and Friday.

Cemeteries, schools, golf courses and city and county properties will have individual plans based on monthly allocations, generally aiming for 80 percent of the amount they used in 2001.

The water works' executive director, Alan Hamel, said watering will not be permitted between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., but the duration of watering in permitted hours won't be regulated.

"We found last year when we put a time limit on watering, that some people were actually using more water because they were watering the whole allotted time," he said.

Instead of trying to enforce such details, the utility plans to rely on an increasing rate structure to encourage conservation - and at the same time to keep its own revenues from suffering in the drought.

The rate structure is "still on the drawing board," Hamel said, but the staff may be ready to ask the board to adopt a temporary drought rate early in April.

In other action Tuesday, the board agreed to take part in a complicated trade that will enable Aurora to use 3,000 acre-feet of water it is attempting to buy from Rocky Ford Ditch shareholders.

The trade involves water owned by Colorado Water Protective and Development Association, a company that supplies water to well owners to replace in the river system any water they pump from their wells.

The association will trade the water to Aurora and receive 4,000 acre-feet in return. Intermediate steps to the trade will involve the association's municipal clients - seven towns, one water district and Crowley County - trading their Fryingpan-Arkansas water to Pueblo Board of Water Works for nonproject water that is fully reusable. Then the municipal users will provide the nonproject water to the association.

Late last year, Aurora offered to lease the water from the sellers and attempted to get the state engineer's permission to transfer the water. But State Engineer Hal Simpson, on advice from Attorney General Ken Salazar, denied the city's request in late January.

Ivan Walter, engineer for the well association, suggested a trade with Aurora, saying it would help the city and also provide some extra water for early irrigation on area farms.

Hamel said he understands a similar deal is in the works for Aurora to trade another 1,000 acre-feet of Rocky Ford Ditch water to another well association, the Lower Arkansas Water Management Association.

He added that the Colorado Water Protective and Development Association deal also must be approved by each of the towns involved, the state engineer's office, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District. The district gave tentative approval to the plan on Feb. 7.

The water board authorized Hamel to deal with both well associations.

The board also authorized Hamel to work on an emergency water supply for Pueblo Chemical Depot, which relies on wells which may not be able to get replacement water until midsummer.

Hamel said the depot this spring needs only about 10 acre-feet a month.

He added that he hopes by the time the depot's project of neutralizing its stores of mustard gas gets under way, the current drought will be over and the water board can issue long-term leases to the contractor.

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