This story was first published at KUNC News. AURORA | Tim York sees Aurora residents watering their lawns on those extra days when they aren’t supposed to, even when their illegal watering happens at 4 a.m. York doesn’t actually see the violations with his own eyes. But the leader of Aurora’s water conservation program knows they’re doing it with the help of a new computer program. “We look at about 2.2 million data points for each individual day, so we’re looking at hourly water use data, and we built some scripts that run against that data on a weekly basis to say “was somebody irrigating when they’re not supposed to be?”” York said earlier this month at his desk at Aurora’s water operations facility. With a few clicks of his mouse, York zeroed in on one of the thousands of watering violations recently committed in Aurora. A graph on one of his large LCD screens revealed a repeating pattern four days a week very early in the morning. He said it could only be a sprinkler on a timer. This surveillance is powered by smart water meters installed last year on homes in Aurora. They transmit data every 15 minutes via cell signal. York’s team automatically gets a spreadsheet each week of thousands of likely outdoor watering violations. Humans verify the data before sending warnings or fines. “If they say “there’s no way I irrigated,” it’s like, well, this is what (the data) shows, and then they usually agree,” he said. “We’re not picking on people just to pick on them. We’re addressing violations, and the reason we’re doing it is a good reason. Water supply is very, very poor.” Aurora’s supply is currently only about half full, and dropping. It’s usually still filling with snowmelt this time of year.