Water wasted at Empire Polo Grounds, parking lot flooded
An empty parking lot in Indio was flooded with hundreds of gallons of water.
“I was driving down to the store down the street, and I saw this and stopped and got out and looked to it and said wow this is just not right,” said Bob Juliano of La Quinta. He was one of the KESQ viewers to contact the station when the flooding started.
The parking lot is on the corner of Monroe Street and Avenue 50. It’s owned by the Empire Polo Grounds and is used as a parking lot for music festivals.
The water was leaking from a water filter that was being overloaded.
KESQ called management with the Empire Polo Grounds. They had no idea the water was running at the time. They sent a maintenance crew to shut it off.
“We probably had sprinklers on the last couple of days and we didn’t turn that valve off. Normally we only use that valve when we are expecting water, we ended up using it as an emergency shut off today, but typically it is always open,” said Kevin Ittig, the operations manager for the Empire Polo Grounds.
Workers with the polo grounds say they share a water meter with other properties and when they need water for irrigation they order it from the Coachella Valley Water District.
“So somebody lost water, its either a small farmer up the way or were not really sure which neighbor ordered water, but yeah we are not responsible for it,” said Ittig.
We checked with Coachella Valley Water District and according to them, the Empire Polo Grounds and the Empire Polo Estates who run water off that meter did order water for Tuesday.
The water comes from the Colorado River and is used for agriculture, so it’s not regulated by the water district.
Once a farm, or in this case, the polo club orders water for agricultural use it’s the water users responsibility, but since this water comes from a federal water supply none of the rules and regulations made by the state cover the use of this water.
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