City Officials Writing Up Water Wasters

As San Diego strives to conserve water, city officials have started patrolling the streets, writing up water wasters.

The city of San Diego must cut down water usage by 16 percent this year, according to goals set by the State Water Resources Control Board. Facing continued drought, the board laid out targets for each water district to meet Gov. Jerry Brown’s 25 percent conservation mandate across the state.

But the local data shows for the first three months of this year, San Diegans used more water, not less.

So on Friday came another wakeup call. The city’s Public Utilities Department now has four new field representatives, bringing their total force up to 17 people.

If they see someone breaking city water regulations, the representatives can give out violation notices that could end in citations or fines.

β€œWe need to be really serious,” said Luis Generoso, the Water Resources Manager for the San Diego Public Utilities Department.

He said this month, field representatives have checked 450 complaints, up from 370 last month.

Luis arranged for NBC 7 to meet up with James, one of the field representatives who checks on the complaints and looks for violations.

β€œWe go out every day but especially in the rain because people still water in the rain,” James said.

He told us he checked on a complaint Friday morning about a broken sprinkler, and while doing so, he found houses with their sprinklers on as rain poured down.

James handed out advisory letters and returned later that day to see if they had complied.

β€œSo far so good,” he said. β€œIt looks like our letter has done its job, and we are now part of the solution.”

But representatives will no longer hand out the nicer advisory letters. Residents will just get a notice of violation and then a fine.

How many people left on their sprinklers? Generoso said as of 2 p.m. Friday, there were eight complaints about people irrigating during the rain.

As a reminder, you are not supposed to water for 48 hours after the rain.
 

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