Dallas Area Rapid Transit said a sprinkler malfunction was the culprit for daytime watering on its property at a Dallas intersection.
Dallas residents and businesses cannot water lawns between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Colby Dunnican snapped a picture of the sprinklers when he and his wife saw them watering grass at about 3 p.m. at Harry Hines and Market Center boulevards on Saturday.
"My wife and I came out of the Market Diner, and as we pulled across the street, it immediately jumped out at me," he said. "There was this bank of water sprinklers going off."
When asked about the sprinklers, DART sent inspectors to the intersection to determine why they were going off during the day.
"It's because we had a malfunctioning timer," DART spokesman Mark Ball said.
Crews repaired the problem, and the sprinklers did not go off Wednesday afternoon.
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"When it [is] brought to our attention, if there's a problem, we get it corrected," said Ball.
The city sent out an inspector Wednesday but did not issue a citation because DART was already working to fix the problem.
But the city said it issued DART a violation at around the same time last year for watering during restricted times, but the agency had an exception from the Dallas Board of Adjustment to water during daytime hours.
"That area was under construction for DART last year, and the contractor had just put in plants, so because of the heat, he wanted to make sure that we didn't lose money by putting in those plants," Ball said.
The exception did not extend to this summer.
Dunnican said he was happy to hear the problem had been fixed.
"You know, we're all trying to conserve," he said.
