Sensible water regs needed
As Town Board members, business owners, developers and others have known for years, Riverhead's Town Code is woefully out of date and in need of serious revamping. Some sections are vague, misleading, poorly written and out of step with the times. Attempts to address this have been discussed and even begun, but only in fits and starts, resulting in few improvements.
In some cases it's a matter of too much regulation. But in others, the problem is not enough regulation. We saw the latter over the weekend when excessive irrigation by homeowners created a potentially dangerous situation by depleting the water district's reserve tanks, which are needed in case of fire and other emergencies. As we report on page 3, this prompted district superintendent Gary Pendzick to issue an urgent advisory requesting residents to cut down on their use of sprinklers and hoses or stop using them altogether.
The crisis in large part resulted from people doing stupid things, like watering their lawns to beat the band in the middle of the day and, in the process, raising the volume of daily water use. It was also suspected that some residents with automatic sprinkler systems overrode their timing devices so they could water at will. All this led to a record volume of town water use in a single day -- some 23 million gallons on Saturday, which, as Mr. Pendzick put it, "blasted through" the old record of 19 million gallons set in August 2005. That was a staggering 21 percent increase.
We wondered whether there was anything on the books that would allow Mr. Pendzick to respond not just with an advisory but with mandatory restraints. We spoke with Councilwoman Barbara Blass and she pointed us to Chapter 105-23 of the Town Code, which reads: "The right is reserved for the Town Board to limit the use of water for human consumption or for sanitary purposes." Pretty feeble, we thought, and Ms. Blass heartily agreed. It says nothing at all about conservation.
"There should be a mechanism in place so we can require conservation in times of crisis and be able to deal with violators," Ms. Blass said, promising to bring up the issue at today's Town Board work session.
While they're at it, the Town Board should take a look at total water use, including requiring odd-and-even-day watering based on one's street address and requiring that automatic sprinkler systems be equipped with sensors to turn them off when it rains.
There's nothing more maddening than driving by a house or business in a downpour and seeing lawn sprinklers in operation. To quote the cartoonist Jimmy Hatlo, "There oughta be a law." Shouldn't people be ticketed for that?
