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Reclaimed sprinkling days cut to 5 a week

Residents in unincorporated north county can't water on Mondays and Tuesdays after the reclaimed water supply is hit by no rain and lawn care overuse.

By VANESSA DE LA TORRE
Published April 8, 2006

The county told you so.

Last week, Pinellas utility officials warned customers that the reclaimed water supply was being soaked into their yards at a lavish rate, especially considering the area drought. People needed to seriously cut back on lawn-watering to stave off a shortage.

Apparently many folks did not heed the warning.

Now the county will have to shut down the reclaimed water system for two days every week until the seasonal rains come this summer to Tampa Bay.

Starting April 17, about 1,200 northern county homeowners in unincorporated areas will have five days each week to irrigate yards. Mondays and Tuesdays will be off-limits.

"We had hoped the announcement last Friday would have caused our customers to reduce their irrigation demands," said Todd Tanberg, director of alternate water sources for Pinellas County Utilities. "It didn't."

But the dry weather is mostly to blame, he added, for not replenishing the north county storage pond, and for giving homeowners the false impression that they need to water every day to keep their blades of grass from turning yellow.

"They're concerned about their lawns drying up and dying," Tanberg said. "We tell them, you can maintain a healthier lawn irrigating every second or third day ... essentially a deep root system. The worst thing they can do is overwater. But sometimes that message falls on deaf ears."

Five of the last six years, the county has resorted to a five-day-a-week system to deal with the dry summer months, a cutback that usually happens around June and lasts about 30 days. Last fall, seasonal levels in the storage pond fell below normal, and a partial shutdown was ordered for about two weeks.

This year, the stress is being felt much sooner. The county's northern facility, which circulates 6.7-million gallons of reclaimed water daily, has recently experienced customer demands between 7- and 8-million gallons each day.

Taking no action now "would risk losing water entirely in the system," said Tanberg. The storage pond has a capacity of 63-million gallons.

Aside from the shutdown on Mondays and Tuesdays, people still shouldn't water their yards the rest of the week between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. when irrigation is not as effective, according to the utilities department.

Cities with their own reclaimed water systems have managed the dwindling levels in various ways.

In Dunedin, high demand from 3,300 customers led the water department to transfer 360,000 gallons from the town's water well to two reclaimed water tanks last week.

"We're holding our own, but it depends on our customers not to overuse water and get through the dry season as a community," said Irvin Kety, Dunedin's water division director. "We recommend that people don't plant sod or flower gardens this time of year, but wait until the rainy season in June."

In Largo, residents who pay a flat rate for reclaimed water have been limited to two days a week. Clearwater allows its customers to irrigate every day, except between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and later this year will begin to charge homeowners based on their water usage.

--Vanessa de la Torre can be reached at 445-4167 or vdelatorre@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 8, 2006, 00:33:16]