Penalty for watering the garden during drought? Experts have spoken
More and more local governments are calling for saving water, and some are even introducing bans on, for example, watering gardens. What penalties do their owners have to face?
As “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” writes, in recent years, appeals to save water have appeared in almost 500 municipalities in Poland. This year – due to unprecedented heat – may turn out to be record-breaking. According to data collected by the authors of the Świat Wody blog, after the first heat wave in May, over 50 municipalities appealed to residents to use water only for basic needs or introduced temporary bans, e.g., watering gardens. Now there are over 100 such local governments.
Municipalities are not always limited to just posting on the office’s website and social media. Sometimes the situation with water availability is so serious that local authorities decide to take formal steps.
What are the penalties for watering the garden?
What are the possible penalties for failing to comply with the ban? As the daily writes, the formal introduction of such a ban does not mean that residents will face any sanctions for violating it.
In some cases – such as in Radzymin near Warsaw – the authorities’ orders refer to the provisions of the Code of Petty Offenses. Article 54 provides for the possibility of imposing a fine of up to PLN 500.
However, experts quoted by the daily point out that the above-mentioned article concerns violations of public order regulations “on conduct in public places.” Mateusz Karciarz, a lawyer from the Zygmunt Jerzmanowski i Wspólnicy Law Firm, explains that the Supreme Administrative Court’s jurisprudence assumes that it refers to places generally accessible to everyone, and therefore does not apply to a home garden, where residents can violate the municipal ban by watering the grass.
– Currently, there is no obvious legal basis for imposing a fine for violating the ban. Therefore, municipalities should conduct information campaigns pointing out the consequences of taking care of greenery on their own property at the expense of water shortages in the municipal network for other purposes – summed up in a comment for the newspaper by attorney Aleksandra Urbanowska-Bohun from Ziemski & Partners Law Firm Kostrzewska Kołodziejczak i Wspólnicy.
