Letter: Water District should use media

Monday, Sept. 29, 2003 | 8:42 a.m.

While I fully understand and appreciate the need for residential water conservation during this period of drought in the Las Vegas Valley, I believe the Las Vegas Valley Water District is using ham-handed tactics to intimidate its customers.

I recently received a letter from the Water District with the subject line "Water Waste Violation -- Formal Warning."

The written summary of my so-called violation read, "The problem appears to be a result of extensive washing of surfaces, equipment and/or vehicles." Actually, the very slight dampness -- about 4 inches in width and the length of a single sidewalk slab -- that their inspector observed was the result of hand watering new grass sod. Section 12.4 A.3 of their own regulations states that hand irrigating sod is a viable exception to the new watering rules.

Also, this "violation" occurred on a Tuesday, which is one of the three days a week that the area I live in is permitted to water. So on both points, I believe that this warning was unjust.

My opinion is that Water District inspectors have been instructed by their managers to be gung-ho and are using the enforcement process as a way to inform the public of the regulations.

More sophisticated public servants and business people know that a far more effective way to inform people is through the media. The district could buy ads in this newspaper, for example, and reach far more people and much more efficiently than by mounting this expensive one-on-one information effort masquerading as "inspection."

DALE DAVIDSON