Complaints about residents violating mandatory outdoor watering restrictions tripled across Sarasota County after regional officials tightened drought restrictions in April. But the surge was concentrated almost entirely in the communities that are actively enforcing the restrictions and gave residents an easy way to report violations.
The region has been under a declared water shortage since November, but the Southwest Florida Water Management District escalated it to a Phase 3 water shortage on April 3, limiting most outdoor watering to once a week. During the first five months of the drought — from Nov. 5 to April 5 — local governments received just over 200 reports of watering violations. In the following two months, there were more than 600.
Nearly all of those complaints came from unincorporated Sarasota County, the Englewood water district and the city of North Port, which together accounted for 98% of the reported violations. Sarasota, Venice and Longboat Key, meanwhile, provided little or no online information about how residents could report violations and received few complaints, even though some continued enforcing the restrictions on their own.
Brian Vinson, who lives in unincorporated Sarasota County, is among those who have reported neighbors for violating the restrictions. He said doesn’t consider taking care of the Earth just an ecological duty, he considers it a spiritual one…