The system does not know how much water you use to water your lawn every day. All the system knows is how much water you used in each month for as long as you owned the home. The system doesn't know how many days you watered or how long your system ran on each of those days. The calculations for this would be horrendous and there would likely be hundreds of homeowners who didn't agree with the results.

Secondly, saturating your own lawn is not what you want to do before a heavy rain event. You want your lawn to be able to absorb some of the water to reduce standing water and runoff damage. If your lawn is saturated at the beginning of the event then everything that falls becomes runoff. Not only could this potentially damage your property but it also means more water into the storm drains which raises the ponds faster.

EDIT to add:

Water pressure would also make it more difficult to calculate how much water a homeowner uses in a day. If everyone turned on their irrigation at the same time the water pressure would drop and you would use less than you use under normal conditions. This would make it even more difficult to estimate how much to discount a bill.

Also, some irrigation systems are connected to potable water and not pond water. This is common above 466 but might occur in other pockets too. Running these systems would not help the ponds at all. Expecting Villagers to know which system they are on is unrealistic.

They are draining the retention ponds in anticipation of additional rainfall

You have to pay for that water. At $3 for 30 days that is $90 a month. People here scream when their Amenity fee goes up $4 a month.

I also don’t think the home irrigation water is tied to the ponds.

I’m not a newcomer, but I’m afraid I have to agree. 😢

Depends on where you live.

A golf corse sprinkler puts out more water in 1 minute then yours does in 1 hour.

Home irrigation is not tied to the ponds so it wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

Just answer The guys question you don’t need 20 responses of the same answer. The person is curious one or two responses and the rest that you should just mind your business, but everybody has to throw in their two cents. That’s why the site sucks at times.

Too bad they always lower the ponds too much causing many of them to never fully recover because not all areas receive lots of rain during these storms. Here in Deluna we always have ponds that aren’t full due to how much water we lose before storms because of the “water management” system, and then we have unsightly half empty, or in some cases completely dry ponds throughout the winter season until we finally receive rain again the following summer. Then it starts all over again with the “system” lowering our finally full, or half full ponds again. They need a system that lowers only the ponds that are actually full, but I guess that would mean boots on the ground checking each pond rather than the automated system they use everywhere whether it’s needed or not.

Also, I agree about the search feature here. It sucks.

Down south of 44 our irrigation comes from the ponds.

To lower the water level of the ponds before the next storm.

Just choose not to read those questions/posts.

Emptying the ponds to prepare for what's coming

I am waiting for this uninformed person to acknowledge they were ignorant with this statement and thank those who informed them and made them more knowledgeable.

Adding these FAQs to newbie site
 

I'll add these FAQs to The Villages 101 The Villages 101 You've come the right place for renters and snowbirds to learn about The Villages "Florida's Friendliest Hometown". Neighborhoods, house rentals, activities, and pointers to the many other resources.

But agree that using the search function is always a good idea before posting ....

Tropical Storm "Milton" is headed towards Florida, where it is expected to build into a hurricane prior to arriving here. So, water is being drained from retention ponds to make room for the heavy rainfall that is anticipated from the hurricane. The Villages does an OUTSTANDING job of "managing water" to protect homes from flooding here in America's friendliest town!