Water restriction rant
 

So it seems we are on a water restriction in my neighborhood, the entrance sign warns you will be fined if you do not comply to the lawn watering schedule.

I am allowed to water on Wed and Sat.

We live on a sand ridge and even after tropical systems move through my lawn is bone dry in 24 hours. You can empty my pool without a well point because there is no ground water. I am about 35' above sea level and like I said on a sand ridge.

I know its only grass and it should not be a big deal, but I take good care of my place including the lawn and I want it to look nice, I have expensive Floritam or St. Augustine grass ( came with the house when I bought it) that will die if it does not get enough water, bahia a cheaper grass, will lie dormant when not watered and come back to life with water.

So here is my rant, I will comply and change my sprinklers from every other day to 2 times a week.

What gets me is on the day when you can water, I see people out watering their lawn in the middle of the day (waste of water) all day long, sprinklers running for 2-3 hours and sometimes as long as 5 hours during the day you CAN water.

I water my entire property in 4 zones at 15 minutes a zone 1 hour of the well running and this happens at 2 in the morning when the dew point is high and the water will not evaporate and can soak into the ground.

So who is wasting more water the guy that runs his sprinklers 1 hour every other day (violation!!) or the guy watering his lawn for 6 hours 2 days a week? (in compliance)

I bet less water was being used before the restriction.

Thanks for the reminder. I need to water the garden today.


KT

We are 6" over the normal for rain here in Missouri. I am cutting the grass every 5-7 days.

Bring it up at the next HOA meeting...

Throw some mud on the sign. When they come out to clean it, issue 'em a citation for wasting water.

Oh, I'll be fun as a homeowner some day. . . ;)

One more reason I like my unincorporated area. No one can put restrictions on my well, have a bonfire whenever I feel like it, no one tells me what I can and can't do (within reason) on my property. I pay 1/2 the taxes of the folks 2 blocks away and then pay for "city" services on an as-needed basis. :)

You're absolutely right Jim, it makes no sense... ...but then you expected it to? :)

Can you say, "Overpopulation" ??

When I was a kid in WPB (admittedly longer ago than I care to define). there was lots of water in all of Florida, too damn much water as a matter of fact. That was prior to the Condo-ing of the entire state by land moguls and investment houses in the 70's. 80's, 90's and onward.

You may not have known this prior to taking up residence there, but the water supply does not actually increase as more people move in and build homes in a given area, no matter where you are.

I would not choose to live in Florida today for any reason.

I have never lived in a HOA community and never will.

Suppose you water twice, at 12:01AM and 11:59PM, on each of the two allowed water days. That''ll get you to 4 times per week, should be similar to your prior watering schedule. Assuming your sprinkler controller can do it.

This is county wide not just in the subdivision. Its just these subdivision types are the kind to drop a dime on you.

Being on a well I do not see how I should be included in this. Besides, every year its the same BS everyone is screaming drought and 4 months later everyone is screaming because they want to let water out of Lake Okeechobee. We are already starting to get out summer afternoon rainstorms so I do not see this being a huge issue for me.

I was more laughing over the guys watering for 5 hours straight because they can.

I know CA is bone dry, but I didn't know about a drought in FL. I killed half my back yard and put in vegetables. No sprinklers, all hand watered including the small lawn, so that's good. I'm thinking about killing part of the front lawn. Lots of work to get rid of the sod, dead or alive.

milt, you may want to look at a low pressure drip irrigation system to water your garden. Not too wasteful, and you don't have to worry about forgetting to water if it is on a timer.

All depends on how many wells are charged from the same aquifer. Talk of "wells on my property" doesn't really mean much. You are probably tapping a common supply as surely as if you were hooked up to a city supply.

Jim,

call the cops on your neighbors... They did on me here in Broward and they were knocking at my door in no time. I was not aware that the restriction had been revised to twice weeekly.

I water between 5-6am also. My St. Augustine looks like crap by now.

Best of lucks !

The PO had the well installed in the late 80's when the house was built and payed over $2500 for them to go as deep as they could. I get no odor from my water at all and that is rare in Florida, in addition no stains from the water either. Its a very deep well and the water is very clean, especially for Florida.


ErVikingo - I am not the type to do drop dimes its not my style, if someone wants to report me its their karma.

jyl - great idea, I will do a normal watering at 2 in the morning on wed then again at 11 at night wed same deal on Saturday. I'll tell you how it works out.

I stabbed a well just for watering, helps keep my basement dry..

I first heard of xeriscaping (landscaping that doesn't require supplemental irrigation) a couple of decades ago, when I lived in Brevard County, FL. Seemed like a good idea, considering you couldn't count on regular rainfall for much of the year. I remember seeing drought-like conditions pretty often during the 11-12 years I lived there.

Jim,

I did this with much of my yard, I tore out the water thirsty plants and replaced with rock or on the hill in my backyard native plants that survive well with little watering.

I do not have a large lawn and if I get my way over the next year or so I will have almost no front lawn and already have very little rear lawn.

For the time being I am trying not to have a brown carpet to look at.


Jim

Must be nice.

All y'all folks down south suckin down the water is getting more dissolved air into the water from my well... I'm north of you, that means its my aquifer first, so stop taking so much!


(I guess most of that should be in green....)

Jim, it sounds like you've done smart things. The rainy season is nearly upon you, right?

You should be getting the salt water intrusion first. ;)

Thats what we've done. From May- Oct we typically receive no rain in my area. Our yard is landscaped primarily with Cali coast native varieties. I stick with natives as much as possible. Naturally drought tolerant, lots of varieties. Even an abundance of native grasses. I'm sure you could find some equally pleasant alternatives in FLA.

Jim, I mentioned the commonality of supply as a result of watching several years of local farmers fighting against well registration, water use restrictions, paying for water usage etc. In my area the water aquifers cover a huge area. Local farmers use a lot of irrigation and for years had no restrictions governing their misuse. In the end they pretty much lost the battle due to the fact that the water supply trancends property boundries. They couldn't prove that their use stopped at their border which you could with say, mineral rights or logging rights.

With more people wanting to develop (their American Capitolistic given right), tougher measures will be needed for us all to coexist.

Yeah, tough measures. If we cut off water going south, Northern Cali's water woes would be solved, for a while.

Too many people.

The root of all problems.

When people start keeping their flys zipped up and the population starts returning to a sustainable size, we'll all collectively be better off. But until then (last I checked, spitting out babies was more popular than dying) things are only gonna' get worse.

Not my style either but they are breaking the law and clearly its affecting you (you woudn't be posting here if not).

You can be nice and tell them that they are wasting the water since it evaporates.

Wait, you have a well and they're restricting your usage?

Yeah, go figure. Its so deep I am actually tapping water from jdiots backyard. :D

Juan - gotcha now, this is sort of the jist of this rant too, enact a water restriction, old farts go nuts and start watering all day on their days to save their lawns and use twice as much water than when there was no restriction.

I might just start dropping dimes, of course once I reset my sprinklers. :D

hello from aus, the land of water restrictions SmileWavy

no watering the lawn (i dont know why people do this anyway...havent watered mine EVER and its still nice and green)
no watering the garden (now you can do it once a week)
no watering hard surfaces (fuch knows why people water the pavement anyway!)
no washing the car

You would be surprised that personal consumption is less of a problem than the development itself. Hardscape creates runoff of water that would ordinarily supply the aquifers instead of being shunted into drains that end up in the ocean.
The aquifers themselves are not given the chance to recharge.

Developers are demanding increased footprint %s from the planning commission to maximize profits from developed land. My county should be focusing on decreasing hardscape and offering incentives for the replacement of concrete/asphalt with permeable solutions. I've done all that I can do on a personal level. Removed our asphalt drive and replaced it with paving bricks/sand, removed a concrete patio and replaced it with flag stone, created an off drive parking area with concrete block on side planted with grasses.

Hard to enlighten the people that just want to concrete over everything.

Now that's just wrong. :(

you do understand that when the well runs dry there is no more water right?

most of us have wells. it's not like the city buys aquafina and dumps it into a pump that sends it to your house.

google 'aquifer'. i'm no expert but aquifers can/are shared by many people and this can include the township down the road. when these get low it's a very real concern.

You are absolutely correct on this. In fact I just took an exam (part of my state licensing) that deals with exactly these kinds of site planning issues a couple of weeks ago. Current-day (sustainable-design) philosophy encourages the use of swales, detention ponds and landscape areas that allow water to (1) be filtered by plant material prior to infiltration and (2) to re-enter the aquafer system directly. French drains, etc. are also encouraged versus traditional catch basins/storm drains running to (usually concrete-lined) drainage channels.

Good job on the update on your own land/property!

It gets more complicated depending on soil conditions. If you have very fine, clay-like soils, they can expand/contract wildly depending on moisture content. As such, you have to know what the best approach is from a development standpoint prior to doing anything. The traditional "el cheapo" developer solution is always to hardscape everything and plug in storm drains where they have to. NOT always the best, I agree 100%!

Spot on. My water is all "well supplied" even though I get my water from "the system" Matter of fact the property to the right of me is a water district pump station. Nice, quite well landscaped neighbor.:D I love em. No late parties.;)

Guess you aren't suprised then;)SmileWavy I did have to endure a hard fought battle with my wife over the new patio. She wanted the flag mortared which I told her defeated the purpose! I endured.:D Got another battle coming though. She and I both want to add on. I want to go up on the same footprint. She wants to go off the back. Going to be EPIC!


I'm surprised however, that I haven't been lambasted here as a tree hugging, hippie, greenie, left wing wack job because of my environmental conservationist values......yet.:rolleyes::D