Doña Ana County, NM Water Use Rules: Leak Reporting Duty (2026)

' The same subsection requires drip emitters and heads to be kept in working order 'to optimize water flow to plants' and controller settings, including seasonal adjustments, to be kept current for proper timing and application of irrigation. This duty rides alongside the chapter's other landscape upkeep rules: dead plants must be removed and replaced, trees may not be topped, and overhanging limbs must be pruned clear of streetlights and intersection sight triangles per § 350-602C. Landscaping is first installed per an approved plan before Building Services issues a certificate of occupancy, and any changes to that plan go back through the Community Development Department (CDD) for compliance review.

Because § 350-507 sits in Article V of the Unified Development Code, it binds only landscaped sites in unincorporated Doña Ana County that were required to submit a landscape plan; it does not create a hotline or a formal reporting requirement for a resident's own leaking pipe, and it has no force inside Las Cruces, Sunland Park, Mesilla or Hatch, which administer their own codes. There is no separate irrigation-leak fine in the UDC; a leak left unrepaired is enforced as a landscaping maintenance violation under the county's general penalty.