05/24/2004 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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• • • STAFF ORIGINATOR: COUNCIL MEETING DATE: TOPIC: VOTE REQUIRED: BACKGROUND: AGENDA ITEM NO. 5A Rick DeGardner, Public Services Director May 24, 2004 PUBLIC HEARING, Consider First Reading of Ordinance 14 -04, Amending City Code to Include Water - Sprinkling Ban Simple Majority As discussed in greater detail at the April 21st City Council Work Session, staff is recommending that the City Code be amended to include a water - sprinkling ban. There are several factors that have led to this recommendation. As part of updating the City's Comprehensive Water Plan, a related issue that needs to be addressed is our annual water appropriations permits from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). On an annual basis, the city completes an application to the DNR requesting a certain volume of water for consumption. The DNR then takes into account several factors such as historic growth, existing conservation measures, etc., to determine the city's permitted water volume. When cities exceed their approved water appropriation, the DNR fines the offending city based upon the amount of the overage. The city of Lino Lakes has exceeded the approved water appropriation the past several years. If left unchecked, the fines can become quite severe. There is currently a bill at the state legislature that, if approved, would allow the DNR to issue fines up to $10,000 per violation. There are several factors that the DNR takes into consideration when cities request a higher annual appropriation. The most significant issue is the cities existing conservation measures. The most common conservation measures are sprinkling bans and tiered water rates. Since Lino Lakes does not have any type of a sprinkling ban in place, our requests for additional appropriations have been denied. The same types of conservation measures are evaluated when the DNR reviews requests for additional well houses. A large percentage of the resident's water consumption is directly correlated to summer lawn sprinkling /irrigation. The table listed below summarizes the gallons of water consumed per quarter in 2003. Quarter 1 (typically Jan - Mar) is considered the Base Consumption, or domestic use that is attributed to typical household needs since outdoor watering does not occur in the winter.