City of Oviedo: Community Meeting for Water Conservation
Oviedo, FL, 2007-11-27
Gary Przyborski

The city of Oviedo held a meeting tonight at Douglas Stenstrom Elementary to introduce their proposed 2008 Water Saving Reimbursement Incentive Program to individuals and to Home Owner Associations (HOAs) . The city must be commended for being the first in Seminole County to address this pressing issue. The city's leaders stressed how necessary this was and then later pressed the urgency.

Oviedo's population is approximately 31,000 yet consumes 4.67 million gallons per day, or about 150 gallons per person, whereas the average city dweller uses about 70 gallons. (Half of Oviedo's potable (drinking) water is used for irrigation.) Oviedo's drinking water comes from wells, 400 ft deep in the aquifer, and is controlled by the St. Johns River Water Management. At present the city is exceeding its allotted water use. The choices are to be a new plant to pipe water from lakes or rivers at enormous expense (with costs mentioned that exceed $50,000,000), or to cut back on water use. Wisely, Oviedo has chosen to conserving water through three new plans.

1. Existing water rates were changed on October 1, 2007 from charging customers less for the more water they used, to more, see the Oviedo's new water rates here.
2. New developments will have reduced water rules to be adopted on January 2008.
3. Existing customers will offered incentives to remove much of their water hungry St. Augustine and replace it with Florida-Friendly plants.

Besides an estimated $900 annual savings in reduced water costs for the average owner, the special incentives are as follows:

Oviedo has taken the lead with revamping of its landscaping around the entrances to city hall and renovating Friendship Park, which drastically reduced potable water use. One of the items used was an artificial grass that requires no watering whatsoever. The city also has switched to waterless urinals.The city is adding large pipes to pump reclaimed water to each sub-division so that potable water isn't used for irrigation; this effort is costing the city millions of dollars. Councilman Stephen Schenck had a useful perspective on all this by looking at the top 200 residential water users in the city; one man on a quarter acre lot used 76,000 gallons per month, or a staggering 2,500 gallons per day.

At the conclusion, the floor was open to a question and answer period. There was a good mix of questions.

• One resident expressed outrage that his HOA sent out a letter to its people saying that it had no plans to implement any water conservation or changing its land use restrictions.
• Someone else asked if the city could provide any help with picking landscaping companies or native plants.The city managers recommended Florida Yards and Neighborhoods- see link below.
• Another comment was that the common areas of HOAs should be converted to Florida-Friendly plants as an example of what can be done for homeowners.
• One woman expressed that Zeroscaping from Arizona can be quite beautiful instead of the Xeriscaping being promoted by the City Council.
• One man asked if the city had plans to re-imburse HOAs for this work; the council will consider this.
• One woman expressed outrage over the high water use at a local golf course. The Deputy Mayor explained that golf courses received a special dispensation by Florida's legislature and use reclaimed water but directly from St. Johns River Management District, just like the city of Oviedo. It would smart if a golf course could use artificial grass to acheive good play with no water use.
• Their were several comments made about watering during the rain. The contact person is Jay Stainer, Oviedo's Water Conservation Officer, and a man who has good hands on knowledge about water saving techniques. In fact, Mr. Stainer mentioned that they are investigating soil moisture sensors which are more accurate and reliable than typical water sensors that often hang up.
• Another item mentioned was how HOAs can limit the use of energy and water saving techniques such as solar water heating, solar cells, and even the use of clothes lines, see Project Laundry List. Deputy Mayor Dominic Persampiere answered that in Florida that was not a problem due to a law that forbid HOAs from interfering with this. The Deputy Mayor refers to Florida Statute Section 163.04 which states that no restriction... "shall prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting solar collectors, clotheslines, or other energy devices based on renewable resources...." Unfortunately, the law does not go far enought since it allows HOAs to impose restrictions, which often delays installation and has the effect of prohibiting these devices, and can threaten increased costs for the homeowner, not to mention added litigation costs for other homeowners in the HOA, see What are my rights in adding solar collectors when confronted with a homeowner's association that refuses to allow the installation?. Before adding a solar system in Florida, seek the approval of the associated HOA (if you're in one). Hopefully, the Florida Legislature will stregthen this law to allow further penetration of renewable energy sources.
• Oviedo's new mayor elect Mary Lou Andrews also attended and mentioned her own efforts to green her own yard by using more native plants and mulch to keep in the moisture.

Afterwards, the city had displays of low water use toilets, faucets, and showerheads. The city handed out a slide presentation and an excellent book- Waterwise Florida Landscapes. They also gave us two new showerheads and low water flow aerator heads which I replaced that evening.

Final Thoughts

The City of Oviedo should be commended for taking this necessary first step. My only quibble with the proposed plan is that water harvesting and gray water use should also be encouraged with incentives. To me, it doesn't make sense to pump reclaimed water through an expensive piping system when water can easily be gathered from runoff from roofs into storage containers and then reused on the garden/yard by individuals.

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