The city council in San Diego, California, amended the city’s municipal code this week to limit watering of lawns and landscaping to two days a week, five minutes at a time, according to KPBS Public Broadcasting.
Traditional sprinklers such as this one should be running only rarely in San Diego following the city council’s action this week.Photo: www.flickr.com
Residents using water-efficient devices such as drip-irrigation systems are allowed to water longer than five minutes, but everyone is prohibited from watering within 48 hours of a rain totaling one-eighth of an inch or more. In addition, all watering is prohibited between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
The city’s municipal code was changed to bring San Diego’s water restrictions in line with requirements set by the state and the San Diego County Water Authority. According to state officials, the city of San Diego has only cut back 3.5 percent from April 2013 to April 2015.
Councilman David Alvarez says if the latest restrictions don’t help reduce consumption in San Diego by 16 percent, the city will have to consider even tighter regulations, KPBS reports. Meanwhile, the San Diego chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects doesn’t agree with some of the updated rules. “We are opposed to the combination of restrictions of a maximum of five minutes of spray irrigation and the restriction of irrigating no more than two days per week because the two together do not allow for the consideration of each site’s unique conditions and needs and they reduce the landscape industry professional’s ability to creatively and effectively meet the goal of conserving water,” the group wrote in a letter to the council.
