Angelenos Tattle On Water-Wasters In Droves

LOS ANGELES, CA — If you are thinking about hosing down your driveway despite the drought, think again: your neighbors are taking note of your wasteful ways. The city's MyLA311 system received 1,643 reports about water waste or people violating irrigation rules in the first half of the year, according to the USC nonprofit news organization Crosstown.

The number of Los Angeles residents willing to report on people who don't heed water-use restrictions more than doubled in the first have of the year, Crosstown found. Each month, more and more people call the MyLA311 system to report on water-use scofflaws. In June, alone, the system received 589 reports of water waste or other violations, up from 314 in May.

To report water waste resident can go to the MyLA311 website or call 311.

The Department of Water and Power's separate online portal for customers to file complaints has also seen a spike, receiving 672 such complaints between June 1 and June 14 -- 14% more than the number received in the entire month of June last year.

"We're very encouraged by the increase in water waste complaints we have received," DWP's Ellen Cheng told Crosstown. "It shows people are taking the drought seriously and trying to cut back their use as well as reporting on potential violations of the ordinance."

New water restrictions took effect in the city on June 1, but state and local officials have been urging residents for months to conserve water in the face of a protracted drought.

The city's restrictions limit outdoor watering to two days per week, down from three, with watering permitted at odd-numbered street addresses on Mondays and Fridays, and at even-numbered addresses on Thursdays and Sundays.

Watering with sprinklers is limited to eight minutes per station. Sprinklers with water-conserving nozzles is limited to 15 minutes per station. All watering must be done in the evening or early morning, with no watering permitted outdoors between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

City officials announced last week that calls for conservation appear to be working. June's water use in the city was down 9% from last June, and was the all-time lowest water-use for any month of June on record.

City News Service