Those who decided to defy water use restrictions imposed in Manteca in response to a statewide drought emergency are paying a big price.
They may end up paying accumulative fines of $5,500. Five individuals have been hit with $250 fines for violating water rules three times between Oct. 6 and Dec. 31 of last year.
Altogether Manteca’s water conservation monitors issued 595 notices of violations during the last 86 days of 2015. That included:
u504 first time violators that received a written notice.u86 second time violators that earned a second warning notice and a $50 penalty that they could have waived by attending a water conservation seminar.
u5 third time violators that were slapped with $250 penalties.
The primary violations were watering on the wrong day, watering on Monday, watering between noon and 6 p.m., water flowing into the gutter for more than 5 minutes and washing sidewalks and driveways.
A report on enforcement is part of a water conservation update being presented to the Manteca City Council when they meet Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St.
Manteca staff spends an average of 40 hours per week on enforcement. It includes an average of six enforcement patrols per week and an average of three hours each week responding to water waste complaints made by residents either via phone, the government’s outreach program on the city’s website or by email. Water complaints are being investigated within a one-day time frame.
City reduces park
water use 40%
Twenty of the city’s 60 parks including the golf course — roughly 80 percent of Manteca’s 360 acres in parkland use — now use water not suitable for drinking from irrigation wells that tap into higher water tables.
The council directed staff in April to reduce park irrigation by 25 percent over 2013 levels. Those 28 parks used 875 million gallons in 2013 for irrigation. Last year it dropped to 524.67 million gallons for a 40 percent reduction making Manteca’s parks department arguably the largest single conserver of water in the city.
There are 78 acres of parkland irrigated with portable water suitable for drinking. They used 110 million gallons in 2015.
The city also banned construction firms from using drinking water for dust control.
They trained 98 drivers on how to access reclaimed water from purple fire hydrants at the city’s wastewater treatment plant. As a result, 2.55 million gallons of water were provided to contractors
The free reclaimed water offset the cost of traveling to and from the construction sites. Normally, the city would have contractors connect to fire hydrants where the water is metered and development firms billed accordingly.
Rebate programs prompt
water use reduction
Some 358 homeowners have taken advance of increased municipal rebates to replace high water use toilets and washing machines.
There were 150 people that took advantage of the $100 rebate to put in place high efficiency washing machines.
Another 208 took advantage of low-flow toilet rebates of $75 that prior to the drought were $25.
The two programs have paid $29,950 to Manteca residents to help them reduce water consumption.
The city’s lawn-to-garden program that pays a $1 per square foot to replace turf (up to $650 for residential and $5,000 for commercial) received 125 applications to replace 90,871 square feet of turf.
That’s the equivalent of 1.6 regulation football fields that that are 57,600 square feet each. So far, 40,590 square feet of turf has been replaced.
The city has approved $37,777 for pavement with $27,292 paid to date.
