District OKs $1,000 Penalty for Palmdale-Area Water Wasters

Palmdale-area residents--and even local governments--accused of flagrantly wasting water could have their service shut off and be required to pay a $1,000 penalty to have service restored under a tough conservation policy adopted Tuesday night by a local water agency.

The board of directors of the Palmdale Water District, which serves more than 50,000 people in the Mojave Desert city and nearby unincorporated areas, passed the policy on a 5-0 vote. It takes effect immediately.

“All we’re trying to do is conserve water,” said board member Joe Sage, who proposed the new policy, which he said was needed to cope with a three-year drought.

Several board members said the policy was aimed at the city of Palmdale and the Palmdale School District, which they said are using too much water on campus and street median lawns.

Under the new rule, customers who continue to waste or misuse water after receiving a five-day notice from the district would have their water turned off. The district would require payment of a $1,000 “disconnection fee” before restoring service.

Dennis LaMoreaux, agency acting engineer-manager, said its prior rules already allowed the district to shut off water service to customers who waste water if they fail to heed the five-day notice. But he said the past policy made no provision for a financial penalty.

Those who are assessed penalties will be able to appeal to the board to reverse them.

The policy does not define waste, such as whether over-watering of lawns would be punished. Board members differed on the subject.

Sage said that any homeowner who waters a lawn so thoroughly that water runs into the street should be cited. Board President Les Carter disagreed, saying “it would be a very, very extreme case before someone is fined $1,000.”

It will be up to the district’s staff whether to cite a homeowner for wasting water, LaMoreaux acknowledged. He said district officials would use common sense in enforcing the policy.

Officials of the district, which dispenses about five billion gallons of water a year, also said they could not recall an instance under the district’s prior policy in which water service was cut off for wastefulness.

The district’s new policy is tougher than the conservation measures now enforced by either the Los Angeles city Department of Water and Power or the Los Angeles County waterworks agency, officials said.

The DWP, although in the midst of a voluntary conservation program that urges its customers to cut water use by 10%, neither halts service nor fines people who waste water, said Ed Freudenberg, a department spokesman.

The county waterworks division, which serves customers in Lancaster, the western portion of Palmdale and surrounding areas, has no sanctions for people who waste water. But county officials said the agency will consider adopting a similar rule in the coming months.

“Anything that can be done to reduce the amount of water being used up there is to everyone’s benefit,” said Gary Hartley, assistant division head of the county’s Waterworks and Sewer Maintenance Division.

Hartley said Antelope Valley residents, because of the desert environment and the landscaping typical of many new homes there, use about twice as much water as their counterparts in the Los Angeles basin.