The Laguna Beach County Water District has started restricting the use of sprinklers for landscape watering to no more than three days per week.
Effective July 1, customers are still permitted to turn on sprinklers Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. Irrigating is limited to no more than 10 minutes per valve per cycle with no run-off onto adjacent properties.
“Reducing the amount of water we use ensures we have adequate supplies in the event the drought continues for multiple years,” District General Manager Keith Van Der Maaten said in a press release.
More than half of customers’ daily water use usually goes towards landscape watering.
A declaration of a water supply shortage alert by the District Board of Directors on June 23 follows a mandate from Gov. Gavin Newsom for urban water supplies to slash their usage amid worsening drought conditions. This allows district staff to step up notifications and enforcement to fix leaks.
The 10-minute provision does not apply to landscape irrigation systems using water-efficient devices, including, but not limited to weather-based (or ‘smart’) irrigation controllers, drip/micro spray emitters, stream rotor sprinklers, and high-efficiency rotating sprinkler nozzles.
Plant containers, trees, shrubs, and vegetable gardens may be watered anytime using drip irrigation or watering by hand with a hose controlled by a self-closing nozzle.
