Starting today, L.A. limits water sprinkling to 2 days a week

A final warning to all you lawn aficionados and green thumbs: Los Angeles' mandatory water conservation restrictions — aimed at reducing the city's water use by 15% — begin today.

That means residents can use their sprinklers only on Mondays and Thursdays, and customers who don't cut their water use could face higher utility bills.

Details on the shortage rate are a bit complex. To determine how to avoid higher rates, customers can call the DWP at (800) DIAL-DWP or log into their account at the DWP website to determine their water allotment. The agency has posted all the details here.

And if your neighbor catches you using those sprinklers — on, say, Tuesday — you might hear from the drought police. The DWP is seeking reports of water waste at (800) DIAL-DWP or via e-mail at waterconservationteam@ladwp.com.

— Maeve Reston

Photo: Steve Osman / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Charly]

It's so easy to get around this, a cave man can do it. Water enforcers work during the day between 8-6pm. DWP max have 32 enforcers which have to cover an area of 469.1 SQ MI. If home owner is to adjust their sprinkler to run very early in the morning and only for coupel of minutes, there is no way that they will be caught. Basically this law is without any teeth. Also law says that they have to witness sprinklers running in order to ticket as such that makes it even harder. Lets not forget that you're permited to water by hand during any day of the week. So basically this law is a joke.

[Fascist State]

Yet another scheme where authorities want YOU to snitch on others.
Forget the Nanny state this is turning into the KGB state.

[Tony B]

The penalty for excessive watering must be much larger than the money invested in one's lawn. If someone has spent $10K or more on fancy grass and landscaping then he will gladly pay a $100 fee.

[ManO'theHour]

Yadda Yadda Yadda. These are all talk. No matter how good the law is but without implementation, the law goes down the drain. The affluents are the big water-waster in this county. They just don't care. Some run the water while flossing for an hour. Some run the water in full blast to use its sound to stimulate their bladders. They have the biggest lawn in the land: front and back. So watch those people. Otherwise, this is just another yadda yadda yadda.

[Amy]

Plant native plants! They're beautiful, drought tolerant, and they smell good (think sages, sagebrush). You'll finally have birds and butterflies in your yard. I only need to water once a month now that I've ripped out the lawn and replaced it with native landscaping. In spring, my yard is filled with wildfowers.

It kills me to see people so ignorant of the beauty and unique ecology of California. Kill your lawn!

[Eric of Reseda]

To Charly & Fascist State; Are you kidding me?!? You think this is a joke? That this water shortage thing is a government plot? IDIOTS! My goodness, where is the morality these days?!? We waste water, we've been in a prolonged drought, and people are too darn dumb to know that water-rationing is the next step!!! We are doomed by the rampant stupity taking over this country.

[Paul]

Some folks may be laughing right now, but let's see if they're still laughing the next time they get their dwp bill in the mail! According to the dwp website, those who don't conserve 15% below their Tier 1 allotment will have to pay a higher Tier 2 rate. Who needs people catching you in the act when dwp can already monitor how much water you use and charge you a pretty penny for it?!?

[fedup]

To Eric of Reseda: Hear, hear and hallelujah!! I couldn't agree more with you. A sad commentary on our times, for sure.

[Charly]

To Eric Reseda,

I don't care if we are low on water or not i will not obey the law. Enforcement of this law will not happen as it's very hard to enforce it. Morality and ethics is irrelevent.

[Charly]

Paul,

I have no problem paying more for water, so higher DWP will not scare me at all.

[dave11]

All of you people who say that they won't follow the water law because it can't be enforced are part of the problem! It's because you are selfish and don't want to change your ways that the government has to do something to protect everyone. There is not enough water here to serve everyone: we have to steal it from the Owens valley and the Colorado river. Have you ever lived in a country where the water and electricity are only turned on for certain hours in the day? No matter where in the world you live, you can only get a certain amount of water. What makes you think that the USA is above nature?

[asiu]

This is only for residents of the CITY of los angeles?

[Jack Henry]

Wow. A government plot to stop the rain! How stupid and angry can some people get? Keep reading these comments to find out.

[Ara Kassabian]

The LADWP web site is down. Typical.

[Fred]

The high costs will do the job, those that dont want to pay more will save, those that dont mind will be happy to pay extra.

My concern is that it appears this is all based on your previous water usage, I have already replaced shower heads, have low water washer, and conserve highly. Unless I misread, I am now to be punished unless I say 15% on top of that amt? Should I have wasted water like crazy earlier and ignored our useless public officials who asked us to save, so that now it is easy to knock off 15%. seems unfair (maybe there is a min per household?)

[Fred]

The high costs will do the job, those that dont want to pay more will save, those that dont mind will be happy to pay extra.

My concern is that it appears this is all based on your previous water usage, I have already replaced shower heads, have low water washer, and conserve highly. Unless I misread, I am now to be punished unless I say 15% on top of that amt? Should I have wasted water like crazy earlier and ignored our useless public officials who asked us to save, so that now it is easy to knock off 15%. seems unfair (maybe there is a min per household?)

[Fred]

the link to ladwp does not work

[Hector]

How about some population control? Why do we have to keep cutting back to accomodate people with 6+ kids. Think smart on all aspects of your life NOT just your water. I don't mean to sound mean, but really people... we can't keep growing at this rate.. Unless someone comes up with a plan to feed and water all of us..

[melissa]

How hard is it to put a little bit of effort in to make things better? So your lawn is a little less green for the next few months and you save some money! Your grass will bounce back in just a few weeks of regular watering again.

Honestly, can we try to put more than the minimum amount of effort into life?

[Charly]

Dave11,

Yes i am selfish and people will just have to live with it. I live in SFV and temps can get to max of around 120-125 on the hotest day in the summer. If i were to follow the law and water only 2 times a week, my grass, flowers etc will die. Do you suggest that i let everything die and lose around 20k in value? If city would at least let me water m,w,f or t,th,sat i would be okay with it. What i am not okay with is watering on Monday and Thursday only it just to many days between watering.

[Katherine]

It is all good and well to say conserve water, but what do you do when the thoughtless neighbors drink their beer outside and don't bother to go back inside to use the toilet? The sidewalks reek of urine, and when the weather gets hot it is intolerable. You can call the police, but the police say they can't do anything unless they themselves see the people committing the act, which, of course is impossible.

[DMS]

This is absurd.

The whole point of having tiers is to charge different rates for different amounts of water used.

Water with sprinklers only on certain days? What if you forgot? Or were out of town? What if we are having a heat wave and plants are dying? Well, you can still HAND water. SO what's the point of not being able to use sprinklers. It makes no sense at all.

This is big brother at it's worst.

Yes, we are in a shortage, but encourage conserving by increasing prices on higher tiers of water use. Also, what about desalinization? Isn't this how other coastal desert locals "make" water? It may be expensive, but life ain't cheap.

[Sana Loehr]

Water conservation is only a temporary band-aid and this strategy will fail in the long run. People need a certain amount of water for basic survival needs. If we have X number of people living in Los Angeles, multiply that by the bare minimum amount of water a person requires. You can see, through this simple elementary school-level formula, that the real solution is to prevent the population from growing out of control. Without slowing the population growth, government planners are taking us down a path of eventually running out of water and a real disaster.

[Sydney]

Katherine,

This is your main concern, people peeing on the sidewalk? I'm sorry that wherever you live, that is your big problem, but fill a cup with water and toss it on the sidewalk. Oh, and relax.

[Californian]

Well, until now, I've only ever watered once a week: on Tuesday evenings, well after dark. That's because my gardener shows up on Tuesdays, so that's when the plants will most need the watering.

But now? I guess I'll have to pre-water on Monday (which my gardener won't appreciate, 'cause it's hard on his equipment), and then I'll have to water again on Thursday to compensate for not watering on Tuesday (when, again, the plants would need it).

So, in practice, I'll now have to water twice as much as I used to because some dim-witted suits came up with a knee-jerk plan that may've sounded good on paper but has little (or, actually, NEGATIVE) practical value.

Oh, and just today I drove by a couple of golf courses and several parks that all had their sprinklers running in the middle of the afternoon...which means that most of that water will just evaporate in the afternoon heat.

Who's running this state, anyway?

[Brent]

Boohoo. I can't really feel sorry for people who insist on growing plants (like green grass) that are meant for much wetter climates, not California's. We're in a real pickle. Millions of people over the last 60 years have moved here from the Eastern U.S. and tried to bring their flora and fauna with them, sucking up vast amounts of water. Why not plant native species and realize that we live in an extremely dry climate that's in drought to bout? Leave the water for the farmers who grow your fruits and vegetables. Who ever thought that building megacities in the the driest parts of the U.S. was a good idea? Cry me a river. Please.

[jackie]

Just to clear up some confusion:
You don't have to save 15% from what you currently use, just from your current allocation, which was set a long time ago based on your type and size of property. If you are already conserving, you won't notice a thing. This makes sense--just a pricing scheme for a scarce resource.

The total restriction on sprinklers except for two days a week during the cool times is based on the idea that even with the pricing scheme, we won't conserve enough. The alternative is to just raise prices more to the point where it forces people to conserve more, which may be unjust to low income folks only using a normal amount of water.

We have lot of people AND a lot of wasteful use--this is a bad combo. Plus, we can expect to see less and less water every year with global warming reducing the Sierra snowpack.

And really, lawns are very wasteful. I have a beautiful native plants garden that takes hardly any water at all (and provides great habitat for birds and butterflies!), so I would suggest that to others.

[SamOverton]

If only the effort put into avoiding the rules was put into problem solving we might not be in the mess we are in. (I do not refer to just water.)

[Tyler G]

Will there be a tour of DWP managements' homes to see what a shining example they are setting?

[Allen]

If we began an earnest effort to deport illegals, we wouldn't need to water ration.
We are paying yet more money to house illegal aliens in this state.
Think about it. This is an illegal immigrant tax, and you're paying for it.

[B Clemenb]

Plant succulents.
End of story.

[crosslat]

So, I can water for 5 hours on Monday and Thursday, but I can't water for 5 minutes 3 days a week? Shouldn't the restrictions be about the AMOUNT of water you use to water your lawn? What do the days of the week have to do with conservation?

[Charly]

It looks like my water bill will go up by $20-30 a month if i don't cut my water usage. OMG, that will totally bankrupt me, how am i going to afford $20-30 more a month? Can someone deonate me some money. Seriously, do DWP think that if bill go up by $20-30 a month people will care? Okay maybe those that are poor or on fix income, but i am not one of them so why should i care.

[Pulahn Dis]

This so called "conservation" method is a joke. LADWP is just looking for ways to nail the consumer.

Let's not forget that this plan was also brought to you by the same folks that believe $75 for trash collection is fair and by those that cannot do anything for you if the bill comes in "high".

How soon did we forget that this same mafia authorized themselves to use surplus funds (amounting to close to $1.0 M) from overcharging customers. Whatever happened to the rebates LADWP was to return when a judge found them guilty of overcharging customers?

LADWP is Villaraigosa's ATM........

[Charly]

here is how it's being enforced, hopefully latimes don't mind me posting a link to nbc video

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/On_Patrol_with_the_Water_Cops_Los_Angeles.html#WZ4_UXshQHZ0Ebw46n7YsU4KeYB

[Lawns? How medieval!]

Lawns, seriously? How very medieval. I'm not kidding - having a lawn was a medieval status symbol: it said that you owned enough land that you could afford for some of it to sit idle growing nothing but grass (i.e. not food), and that you owned enough sheep to let them roam on it frequently enough to keep it neatly trimmed (and enough other land to keep them elsewhere most of the time).

So, if you want to emulate the medieval upper class English, go ahead and have a lawn.

If you want to be sensible, acknowledge the fact that you live in a drought prone desert area, and plant local, native, adapted to those conditions, flowers, grasses and succulents, then go right ahead.

Banning sprinklers is a good idea because they're ridiculously wasteful, what with the amount of water that evaporates, and/or misses its targets. Hand watering is less wasteful, although still hardly ideal. Installing irrigation, and mulching well, are easily the best ideas (Charly, look up mulching - I guarantee if you mulch your garden properly, twice weekly watering will be more than enough - you'll probably end up not needing that much even).

I live in Melbourne, Australia, we've had water restrictions for so long I don't remember, and the last time I visited LA I was shocked to see the fountains running (ours are all switched off/dry). Now, whilst greater reductions could be gained from forcing industry to be more sensible about their water usage (including using reclaimed water where they don't actually need fresh), I still think it's a good idea for individuals to think about their water usage and cut back - we're all in this together after all.

The Victorian Government currently has a voluntary target of 155 litres per day per person (household bill only, that's just under 41gallons), our household of two with healthy garden, including veggies, is down to 90 litres a day at the moment, i.e. 24 gallons, or 12 gallons each. And we live in a rental where we haven't been able to change anything physically on the house. It's do-able, and our lives are still nice and normal!

[El Guapo]

"Just to clear up some confusion:
You don't have to save 15% from what you currently use, just from your current allocation, which was set a long time ago based on your type and size of property. If you are already conserving, you won't notice a thing. "

Yeah a long time ago as in last winter when we didn't have to use much water to keep things alive.

It's extortion.

[City Employee]

Let's get this right. You can only use the sprinkling system on Mondays and Thursdays but not between the hours from 9a - 4p. Then can we water the lawns instead of using the sprinklers? Can we water the lawns any day of the week as long as we don't exceed the -15% of our current allotment of water? As long as we are within our allotment then why does it matter when we water or use our sprinkler on our lawn?

Granted we need to conserve the water, due to lack of rain and idiots in the state/city government decided to stop bringing water from outside sources and reservoirs. But the deciding of which days is best to water and not to water is idiocy in it's purest form.

Give tips in how to conserve water, which is done, and the penalties of using more than the water allotted is understandable. But the restrictions of which days to use the sprinkling system is pure stupidity. I'll just go water the yard with the hose and stay within my allotted water supply and there is nothing you can do. No laws were broken.

[Charly]

City Employee,

Yes the fact that city decided to designate water usage day is just stupid. It's probably their "opinion" that by making people water by hand, they will not use as much water as an automated watering system will. The fact is simple that people like me will find 1) away to get around it by shorting out time sprinklers are run and/or b)just stand with hose for 20-30 min while getting fresh air. Also being that tier 1 and 2 is not really a law but just water surchage level, i have no problem violating level 1 and paying for lvl 2 water prices. City will not get us to conserve by prohibiting sprinklers usage. Plus those have inclosde yards that can't be seen from outside will not be affected as what you can't see you can't fine.

[Angeleno]

DWP is a highly corrupt institution with minimal oversight and maximal political cronyism. If only Angelenos knew...but we're too busy with work, life and family to notice/care how DWP is legitimizing its corporate rapacity through "conservation." Mr Nahai is a very smooth operator...I have spoken to him and heard him in person. Nahai masquarades as an avuncular Christ figure who is willing to forgive those crucifying nimbys for the sake of his love of man (and LA and conservation). In truth, he is the alpha wolf rounding up millions of Angelenos for a financial kill...D'Arcy, Mayor V, the City Council, and a hundred other cronies in his pack benefit handsomely, while LA goes about its business, barely feeling the fangs.

Look up the mafiaesque background to Measure B and see for yourself. Too much info for you? Try to find out what your 'Tier' is through DWP or your bill. Can't? Oh dear? See how DWP is taking care YOU! You don't like the sinister manipulation? You must be an anti-environmental nimby deadender!

Poor, poor Los Angeles.