City is using too much water at parks

Dear Editor,

Recently, the Mountain Home News covered the controversy of the Mountain Home City Council's increase in water fees for residents of Mountain Home. During the last few weeks of "social distancing" I have been walking around the city parks. While walking I have seen a few of the parks' pop-up sprinklers heads that have not gone back down after sprinkling, so I push them back in, to prevent the city lawn mowers from hitting the sprinkler heads. As a result, I have noticed that some of these sprinkler heads are up every morning, showing that the city parks are being watered every night. This would seem to require a large amount of water for all of the City's parks. The grass in the parks is also mowed fairly short, which may be why the excessive watering is needed in our dry climate. Maybe the City should set their mowers to cut an inch or two higher, and then they could water every two or three days instead of daily.

I would also like to see the City Council publish a monthly water usage number for the spring and summer watering of the parks, schools and golf course, with a comparison to the water usage by the private citizens who pay the City's water bills. If the City will cut back on the daily watering of City property maybe the water rates for the public wouldn't be so much.

Sincerely,

Peter Humm