The city of Fort Worth is done being nice about people who repeatedly use their lawn sprinklers on the wrong day.
The city is considering changes to its rules that could see both commercial and residential customers get their water cut off for repeatedly violating the city’s irrigation ordinance.
The ordinance was adopted in 2013 in an effort to save water after three years of drought.
The rules ban using a sprinkler system between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., and uses address numbers to limit which day of the week residents and businesses can use their sprinklers.
The rules do not apply to hose watering.
The city established new smart meters in 2022 to track water usage, and introduced a fee system in March 2025 to nudge people into compliance with the city’s ordinance.
The first violation results in a written warning, followed by a $25 fine for a second offense, $50 for a third offense, and $75 for a fourth.
While the fee system has gotten some water customers to change their behavior, it hasn’t been enough to meet the Fort Worth’s water conservation goals, according to a city report.
The cheapest source of water is existing water, department director Chris Harder said during a City Council work session Tuesday.
New water added to the system needs to be pumped from reservoirs in East Texas, and that gets very expensive, he said.
The goal of the new enforcement action is to get everyone in compliance with the city’s irrigation ordinance to reduce demands on the system, Harder said.
If successful, the city shouldn’t have any violations of the irrigation ordnance by this time next year, Harder said, emphasizing the cutoffs would only be for irrigation, not indoor usage.
Under the revised rules, homeowners and businesses get four chances before facing the possibility of having their sprinkler water cut off, the report said.
After the fourth consecutive month of violations, the water department will send a notice informing violators they’re getting their water cut off, Harder said.
Businesses would have their water cut off at their dedicated sprinkler water meter, while homeowners would have the backflow device for their sprinkler system locked until the violation is fixed, Harder said.
Commercial customers made up the vast majority of water customers with four consecutive months of violations, according to the city report.
Harder surmised this may have been the result of accountants paying the water bill for the business without noticing the extra fee for the violation.
He said the water department is reaching out to its commercial customers to get them into compliance with the ordinance.