Water shortage phase

The percentages are not targets for a household. Rule 40E-21.251 sets the phases as a function of the estimated percent reduction in overall demand needed to bring present and anticipated demand down to the water supply the district expects to have, and it says "The water shortage phase determines the type of water use restrictions which will be ordered in a declared water shortage."

The condition behind every phase is defined in 40E-21.051(1): a water shortage is the situation in all or part of the district when there is not enough water to meet present and anticipated needs, or when a temporary reduction in use is needed to protect water resources from serious harm. The rule adds, "A water shortage usually occurs due to drought." The body that makes those estimates and issues the orders has its own entry, South Florida Water Management District.

A warning can come before a phase, and a phase's text is not the last word on what is restricted. Three different things are involved, and they are easy to run together.

• A water shortage warning. Under Rule 40E-21.231(3), the Board or the Executive Director may, before any declaration, issue a warning that calls for voluntary reductions in demand. A warning is not a phase.
• A declaration. Each phase's restrictions "shall apply when a Phase I water shortage is declared by the District," and the Phase II, III and IV sections open the same way. On declaration it becomes prohibited to use water inconsistently with the applicable restrictions, and the rule makes it each water user's duty to keep informed about which phase, and which restrictions, apply. The order takes effect the day after its required notice is published, and it lasts until the Board or the Executive Director modifies or rescinds it.
• The order's own terms. Under Rule 40E-21.271(2), the Board may order the listed restrictions for the phase, and it "may order any combination in lieu of or in addition to" them from the additional restrictions the rule describes, if that is needed to reach the reduction. The district's own page describes orders imposing "Modified Phase IV" and "Modified Phase II" restrictions, and the restrictions in force during a declaration are the ones the order imposes.

The district keeps all of this apart from its year-round landscape watering rule, Chapter 40E-24, which is permanent and about irrigation; a declared shortage is temporary and, for its duration, supersedes that rule. What a warning, a declaration or a modified order means for a roof wash specifically is the subject of whether a water shortage warning restricts roof cleaning.

Each phase section has an Other Outside Uses paragraph, and its second item is the one that mentions pressure cleaning. In Phase I it reads: "Outside pressure cleaning shall be restricted to only low volume pressure cleaning, seven days a week."

The term the line uses has its own entry, low-volume pressure cleaning, and the rule's definition of it names no flow rate or pressure. The first item in the same paragraph, in every phase, reads "Washing or cleaning streets, driveways, sidewalks, or other impervious areas with water shall be prohibited." No district interpretation reconciling those two items for a paver driveway was found, and both are set out side by side with the water rules that apply to a paver driveway.

Outside a declaration, none of this phase text applies, because each section applies when that phase is declared. How a declared phase sits beside the county's standing irrigation days over a Naples year is laid out in the Naples water calendar.