Anger as council caught breaking restrictions

Alex de Vos
Residents have slammed City of Greater Geelong for breaking water restrictions during one of the worst droughts on record.
The City has admitted breaching restrictions and faces a lecture from Barwon Water.
Kiara Rizzato was furious after watching the City watering “dead grass and concrete” at Steampacket Place on consecutive nights last week.
Another witness watched water running down a drain as sprinklers wasted water for up to seven hours on at least two nights.
Water remained pooled on the waterfront when the Independent inspected this week.
The City sprinklers operated as stage two restrictions banned watering of lawns across the region.
Tougher stage three bans began this week.
Ms Rizzato said she saw the sprinklers spraying the waterfront outside watering times allocated to the City under a Barwon Water exemption.
Barwon Water granted the exemption for watering on alternate nights between midnight and 4am.
But Ms Rizzato said the sprinklers began “on full spray” about 11pm.
“They were still going when I left the waterfront about 1am,” Ms Rizzato said.
A City spokesperson acknowledged the sprinklers had operated in breach of stage two restrictions and outside the Barwon Water exemption.
He blamed a computer glitch.
“As a result of a computer malfunction, sprinklers continued for two hours beyond the scheduled cut-off time,” a City spokesman said.
“The system has now been turned off while the fault is corrected.”
Barwon Water executive customer services manager Mike Paine said the City’s exemption covered parts of the waterfront, including Steampacket Place.
Barwon Water had granted the exemption “due to the national and international events to be staged in the waterfront precinct”.
Barwon Water had not fined the City for breaking stage-two restrictions.
“If we are made aware that someone is in breach they’ll be educated,” Mr Paine said.
“We’ll liase directly with the relevant person and talk to them about this.
“It’s no different to how we would handle any breach of water restrictions.”
Households face fines up to $2000 for breaking water restriction.
The region’s water storages have fallen to 27.5 per cent capacity after the third-driest October on record.