Glendale City Council restricts landscape watering to twice a week

Residents and businesses can only water their landscaping twice a week, following a decision by the Glendale City Council to step up mandatory conservation efforts.

Starting immediately, watering is allowed only on Tuesdays and Saturdays for 10 minutes per watering station. The restrictions apply to lawns, trees, shrubs or other types of plant life.

Earlier restrictions, enacted last fall, permitted watering three times a week.

In the wake of the ongoing drought, Gov. Jerry Brown ordered municipalities to cut their water usage in April, though the exact amount varied from city to city.

The State Water Resources Control Board set Glendale’s reduction goal at 20%. According to city officials, there has been a 12% cut in usage from August 2014 to last month.

Some Southland cities with a track record of high water use, such as Beverly Hills, are being pressured to trim their reliance by as much as 36%.

Steve Zurn, general manager of Glendale Water & Power, said landscaping amounts to about 60% of the city’s water usage.

He said Glendale residents are doing an excellent job in conserving, but there’s still a lot of work left to be done.

“If we didn’t look at anything else, if we just looked at outside irrigation and turf replacement, we’d meet the [goal], no problem,” he told the council during a presentation.

Councilman Vartan Gharpetian asked about permitting three-day-a-week watering, but for less than 10 minutes because that much water isn’t necessarily needed.

“On hillside areas, especially, when you water for just four or five minutes, you’re going to have a huge runoff,” he said.

In April, a drought charge was added to utility customers’ water bills. The 75-cent charge per hundred cubic feet of water used was approved by the council last fall.

The city’s conservation ordinance also outlines a series of penalties for violators that use too much water, though no citations have been issued.

“We did not want to make criminals out of residents who are simply trying to water their houses,” Zurn said.

But assessing those penalties may became a reality, he said.

Letters reminding homeowners to reduce their water dependence will be sent to about 5,000 customers who’ve used the most water over the past two years, Zurn said.

From there, warnings and citations could follow, he said.

Zurn said the average single family home in Glendale uses about 1,700 cubic feet or roughly 13,000 gallons of water a month.

One property uses 8,900 gallons per day, he told the council.

Councilwoman Laura Friedman said she would like to see more work put toward implementing water reclamation features within the city’s infrastructure, though Zurn replied by saying those projects are more long-term and the current focus is on immediate reductions.

“This is something we need to build right now into our policies and methods in doing capital projects and road work,” Friedman said.

Councilwoman Paula Devine asked about the impact the series of new mixed-use developments would have on water usage to which Zurn responded by saying those projects don’t have much outdoor landscaping.

Newer buildings and appliances that use less water are cutting down on interior usage, he added.

The final prong of the council’s vote on conservation suspended municipal code language that would cite homeowners for letting their lawns go brown from a lack of irrigation.

A discussion on whether to amend city code to allow a homeowner to replace their front lawns with artificial grass — which is currently only permitted in backyards out of street view — is scheduled for council discussion on May 19.