ShareThisBy TONY DAVIS and DANIELLE SOTTOSANTI
Arizona Daily Star
Friday, May 04, 2007
Oro Valley became the first Tucson-area government to impose mandatory water conservation during the current drought, announcing it will ban daytime outdoor watering.
Effective immediately, residents and businesses there are forbidden from watering their plants outdoors from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. That's when authorities say water losses to evaporation are at a peak.
Violators will not be fined. Officials say they believe that most people will voluntarily turn off their sprinklers and drip systems during those hours because of the widespread knowledge of the current drought's severity.
If city officials get a call complaining about violations, they will try to contact that person to check out the complaint but can't guarantee they'll be able to visit the home or business because of a lack of staff members, said Philip Saletta, the town's water utility director.
"By working with our customers, and getting the word out through the media, I think our customers will respond," said Saletta in explaining why he thinks the ban can succeed without fines.
It's the first time in at least the last few decades that any local government has restricted household water use, said Val Little, director of the Water Conservation Alliance of Southern Arizona.
The outdoor ban is part of a package of otherwise voluntary conservation measures that the Oro Valley Town Council adopted last November as part of a drought response plan. All local governments in the state were required to submit such plans, whose conservation measures typically would grow more severe if the drought intensifies.
Most such plans require mandatory conservation at some point. But Oro Valley's plan is one of the few if not the only one in the Tucson area that calls for mandatory water-saving at this stage of the drought, which the plan calls Stage 2.
The plan also asks homeowners and business owners to cut their water use by 10 percent except for homes using less than 4,000 gallons per month. The typical Oro Valley homeowner uses about 10,000 gallons a month.
"Watering during nighttime hours is very effective for conserving water," saving 5 percent to 7 percent and perhaps as much as 10 percent compared with daytime watering, Saletta said.
By contrast, Tucson Water _ which serves much of the metro area but not Oro Valley, which has its own water system _ is currently at a Stage 1 drought planning level. No conservation requirements are imposed on homeowners or businesses. Tucson Water's only current requirement is for water audits on city government facilities.
Restrictions on outdoor watering for Tucson Water customers could come either at a Stage 3 or Stage 4 drought level, said Mitch Basefsky, a Tucson Water spokesman.
Well levels in Oro Valley are dropping faster than in most parts of the Tucson area _ at an average of 5.6 feet a year in the past two years.
But the main factors that drove the town into a Stage 2 declaration this week were the dry weather _ rainfall there since Oct. 1 is 66 percent of normal _and the fact that the federal government has classified this as a severe drought.
Fines for violators won't be put into effect unless the drought reaches a more serious Stage 3 drought level, said Shirley Seng, the town's water utility administrator.
(Contact Tony Davis at tdavis(at)azstarnet.com and Danielle Sottosanti at dsottosanti(at)azstarnet.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps-McClatchy Western Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
