Yeah, yeah, the water restrictions are annoying. But while these Orange Water and Sewer Authority restrictions have been imposed and encouraged, they have not been enforced by the Chapel Hill Police Department. Basically, following those restrictions is up to you.
But meanwhile, the drought keeps getting worse. The water supply is estimated to be 127 days. If we don't get any rain for the next 127 days, we could be coming home from Winter Break, turning on our faucets and watching a whole lot of nothing come out.
Sounds pretty extreme, huh? Well, obviously not extreme enough for Chapel Hill and OWASA officials to start enforcing water use restrictions.
OWASA can impose regulations, upgrade to Stage 3 restrictions, insist that reservoirs are drying up, and chances are people still won't take it seriously -- unless it starts punishing overusers. For every person who is conscientiously taking those two-minute showers, there is someone washing his car in the driveway.
If he knew he would be getting a ticket in his mailbox for water overuse, he might think twice about running the hose in his yard. But chances are, he isn't going to get one. Because the Chapel Hill police have not issued a single water overuse citation this year.
According to police spokeswoman Jane Cousins, the Chapel Hill Police Department coordinates its activities with OWASA and reports any violations it receives directly to OWASA.
But OWASA Executive Director Ed Kerwin said the Chapel Hill Police Department has the exclusive authority to enforce the violations. Cousins said the police will usually respond to overuse calls by going out to the sites and informing the parties of their violations. "Most of the violations are from people who don't know the (water restriction) rules," Cousins said.
Wow. You'd have to be living in a pretty deep, dark hole not to realize that we are in a serious drought -- and it might not be a good idea to water your lawn for hours in the middle of the day. And even this slap on the wrist probably won't force these water-wasters to suddenly follow the rules.
It needs to be OWASA's responsibility to monitor and deal with the overuse and encourage Chapel Hill police to readily make citations if necessary. If there is blatant misuse by a customer, they need to deal with it more thoroughly than issuing a warning to the violators.
