though that percentage has climbed
with retroactive reporting. While
annual reports are only one indication
of compliance, land-use agencies are
indicating they lack trained staff and
understanding of the ordinance, says
Saare-Edmonds.
“A large part of that is the lack of
knowledge. People just don’t have
the special training to understand
the landscape,” says Saare-Edmonds.
“And there’s still a lot of people in the
landscape industry who don’t under-
stand the ordinance or that they have
to comply with a water budget.”
To simplify the ordinance, DWR
assembled a volunteer Landscape
Stakeholder Advisory Group in 2016.
The team of nearly 400 members made
up of landscape professionals, water-
agency personnel and academics
developed roughly 300 recommenda-
tions. Saare-Edmonds says it’s valu-
able information and will be used but
isn’t quite enough to update MWELO.
“We are trying to get at how to
make it easier to use for local land
agencies so that they actually enforce
it and get value out of it in their com-
munities where the landscapes are
improved, and the water use and en-
ergy use goes down,” Saare-Edmonds
says. “We’re not quite there on that.”
Sandra Giarde, executive director
of the California Landscape Contrac-
tors Association, says the state needs
to allocate more resources to MWELO
if it’s really going to affect the amount
of water used on landscaping. The
Sacramento-based association is an
active member of DWR’s advisory
group and a fundamental arm of in-
dustry education, training landscape
contractors and local government
personnel on MWELO for decades.
MWELO in action
Despite the challenges, several agen-
cies in the Capital Region are manag-
ing the ordinance well. When the City
of Roseville adopted the ordinance in
2009, its Planning Division didn’t have
the necessary expertise, like many
cities across the state. But Roseville
is also a water supplier, so in 2016, it
looked to its Water Efficiency division.
With a robust team of certified land-
scape irrigation auditors, landscape
contractors and qualified green gar-
deners, the city was well-positioned to
enforce MWELO.
Most land-use agencies aren’t
water suppliers, but they can establish
voluntary agreements with local water
districts that have the expertise to re-
view and enforce the ordinance, says
Saare-Edmonds. “It would be smart if
they did,” she says, but most have not
done so.
With trained staff, the City of Folsom
is enforcing MWELO across Folsom
Ranch’s 11,000 homes planned over
the next 25-30 years. All home builders
must comply with the ordinance, but
they don’t all approach it the same way.
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