Windsor Town Council to decide on outdoor irrigation limits

Watering your lawn and garden in Windsor is on the verge of becoming more tightly regulated.

In an effort to comply with state water conservation rules and guidelines, the Windsor Town Council Wednesday is scheduled to approve immediate restrictions calling for residents to irrigate outdoors only every other day, and never on Mondays.

Depending on which side of town they live on, residents would have different watering days.

For those west of Highway 101, it would be Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

East of Highway 101, water days would be Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Commercial or institutional customers would water no more than three days per week and not on consecutive days, according to the recommended guidelines.

“We want to focus heavily on irrigation,” Windsor Public Works Director Toni Bertolero said Tuesday. “We have to keep in mind the summer months are coming up, when people will be using more water.”

The Town Council also will be considering a report from a consultant that recommends increasing water and sewer bills by 7 percent, in part to make up for less revenue as customers conserve more.

The Town Council is scheduled to finalize the rate recommendations before public notices are mailed out and a hearing is held July 15 to consider any protests.

But the new outdoor water restrictions would be effective immediately if the council approves them Wednesday.

In response to a historic drought now in its fourth year, state regulators recently required urban water suppliers to limit the number of days when outdoor water use is allowed.

Under updated emergency drought regulations approved in March, water providers with more than 3,000 customers have 45 days to restrict outdoor irrigation to no more than six days per week, according to George Kostyrko, spokesman for the state water board.

Smaller utilities are required to restrict watering to no more than two days per week, or show a 25 percent reduction by other means.

“We really need to stop watering our lawns regularly,” he said, advocating manual lawn irrigation one day a week.

Some cities like Healdsburg and Sonoma already have policies in place that restrict outdoor irrigation to only a few days per week. But state records show both Santa Rosa and Petaluma allow it seven days a week, and are out of compliance, according to Kostyrko.

Santa Rosa’s current guidelines do have some restrictions however, with watering allowed only between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The city has also managed to achieve water savings of 18 percent compared to 2013, surpassing the 16 percent target assigned by the state to Santa Rosa to reflect the city’s relatively low per capita use.

Windsor was also given a conservation target of 16 percent, just a little bit above the 14 percent it managed to cut from consumption between 2013 and this year.

In addition to alternate day watering, the Town Council is also considering penalties for violators. They would receive two written notices before being subject to disconnection. Service would only be resumed after paying a fee of $112.

But Bertolero said the town will be concentrating on educating customers “who may not know all the nuances of when they can irrigate and how long.”

Staff Writer Guy Kovner contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 521-5214 or clark.mason@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter@clarkmas.