ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — New lawn watering rules kicked in and Orange County has a new plan to make sure you follow them. As of Sunday, homeowners can water lawns only one day a week.
Orange County utilities produce 55 million gallons of water a day and the agency just spent $50,000 to hire a hearing officer to make sure you pay if you waste it. The officer acts as an attorney and gives the agency the legal authority it needs to hand out $25 fines.
"They're nickel and diming everybody to death, just little stuff like that," Orange County resident Sandy Sobierajski said.
But county water manager Jacqueline Torbert argues most homeowners have actually been getting a break.
The way it works is the utility's water officers can only hand out warnings if they catch you violating the water restriction rules. It's up to the code enforcement department to hand out fines, but that can take a month because technically you get 30 days to fix your code violation.
"This process is going to be immediate if you're caught violating," Torbert said.
County leaders said, if the hearing officer had been in place over the last year and a half, it could've issued thousands of fines and collected more than $44,000 from some of the most notorious violators in more affluent neighborhoods like Isleworth and Keene's Pointe in Windermere.
County leaders said there is another benefit to having the hearing officer; he is also the person you will get to see if you want to fight the $25 fine issued if you're caught watering your lawn when you're not supposed to.
WFTV
