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Cape clamps down on lawn watering
Cape Coral News-Press | March 17 2005
Coming next: Commercials during Superbowl half-time. Do you water your lawn on a Tuesday? You're helping Al-Qaeda. CIA intelligence tells us that Al-Qaeda use run-off excess water to build WMD. If you are seen with a sprinkler it will be treated as a shoulder-fired rocket launcher and you will immediatel be flown on our torture jet to Guantanamo Bay.
Judy Kopp drove slowly along the streets of southwest Cape Coral, scanning houses for evidence of bright-green lawns, damp driveways and spritzing streams of water.
The sprinkler patrol was on the job and ready to make residents pay.
Kopp — a city code compliance officer — heard all sorts of excuses Tuesday morning. It was the first day police handed out tickets instead of warnings for violators of the city's new, tighter watering restrictions.
The new rules — cutting lawn watering from three to two days per week — were adopted by the city council two weeks ago because of a water shortage that threatens to dry up area wells.
Cape police gave out 24 citations for
water violations Tuesday. In the past, they gave warnings to all but the most flagrant violators. Tickets can cost $25 to $200.
Excuses ranged from renters saying it wasn't their responsibility, to people who forgot about the new rules, to others saying they didn't know about them.
"I hear it all," Kopp said. "Ignorance isn't an excuse, though."
The Cape's water shortage is the worst in Lee County, said Kurt Harclerode, of the Southwest Florida Water Management District.
Other areas face three-day-per-week water restrictions, but the Cape is the only municipality to go to two days and give fines, Harclerode said.
That doesn't mean stiffer restrictions won't eventually happen elsewhere in Lee County.
"The potential is there," Harclerode said. "We're going to start to see some drier weather.
"It's hard to say if that will be needed."
The new restrictions are meant to alleviate the water shortage that threatens to leave 4,000 southwest Cape homes without well water.
Police hope the tougher stance sends a message to residents and they cut back.
One couple, the Beceras, plan to do just that after being hit with a $25 fine.
After Officer Marilyn Buck told the Beceras on Tuesday about fines for the second and third offenses, Ramon Becera quickly moved to shut down the sprinkler.
"Oh," Lily Becera said and smiled. "There won't be a second time."
Police gave out 18 warnings for people with obvious signs of recent watering, such as wet driveways and lawns. They weren't given tickets, however, since they weren't actually caught in the act, police spokesman Angelo Bitsis said.
More citations will follow in the coming days and weeks, police said.
Bitsis said police didn't know how many citations they would rack up Tuesday. "We've never done this before."
Code compliance officers started their day at 8 a.m., and they may start even earlier in the coming weeks to catch violators who water before then, Bitsis said.
Bitsis said Tuesday's enforcement wasn't a code sweep. It was the start of months of enforcement.
Between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Tuesday, Kopp worked two sprinkler violations.
She wrote one citation for R. Fry Builders, which had a row of sprinklers watering bushes behind a Savona Parkway model home. Company officials wouldn't comment.
Kopp also helped out with another citation at 1422 S.W. 38th St. Buck wrote the actual citation.
Lily and Ramon Becera said they hadn't heard or read about the new restrictions.
"It's been in the newspapers," a stone-faced Buck said. "It's been on the radio."
Lily Becera said city officials should have sent notices to residents before they started handing out fines.
The city does plan to list the new restrictions in its quarterly newsletter, which probably will be mailed next week, city spokeswoman Connie Barron said. And there also will be notices in their upcoming water bills.
Since the ordinance was passed Feb. 28 as an emergency measure, city officials didn't have time to send out mass mailings, Barron said.
It's hard to tell whether the city's new restrictions have helped yet, Harclerode said. That effect is mixed up with other factors, such as rainfall last week.
The city's water supply has risen 10 feet since then, and that is mostly because of the rain, he said.
To help enforce the new restrictions, the city gave 17 police volunteers extra training to write water citations. They joined the city's 12 code compliance officers already on the job.
Bitsis wouldn't say how many officers and volunteers were working Tuesday.
Throughout Lee County, most law enforcement agencies usually only give warnings to water violators, Harclerode said.
Tickets start happening when the water level gets low.
"It's understandable," Harclerode said. "There are a lot of things on the plate of local law enforcement."
