How Turf Check checks lawn rebates

Every lawn program on file carries the day it was last read on the agency’s own page. A rate, a cap or a minimum prints only while that day is 60 days ago or less, the program is open (active, seasonal or on a waitlist), and any end date the agency set has not passed. A row read from a terms document that states its own period (“1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027”) counts until that period ends, even past the60 days.

On day 61 the figures come off. The page still names the program, links the agency’s page and says when it was last read. A program that has never been read on the agency’s page shows no figure at all.

State law facts, such as the turf deadlines, follow the same rule over 60 days. A fact past its window shows its source instead of its value.

Pages are rebuilt every day, so a figure comes off without anyone acting. A newly read row reaches the site with the next deploy.

A person reads each program on the agency’s own page and records who it is for, the rate, the caps, the requirements and the date. No figure is quoted until its row has been read there.

Each week a scheduled job opens every program’s page again. It renews the date only when the rate on file is still printed on that page as a rate per square foot (or, for a share of the cost, as that percentage), or beside the agency’s own name in a regional table. For a law fact, every expected phrase must be on the statute’s page. The job changes only the date and the note of how the row was read.

A page the job cannot read, or a rate it cannot find, is left as it was and sent to a person to read. So is a figure that adds a regional base to a local amount: a person reads both pages. A daily self-check warns three weeks before anything on file would stop printing.

Your address is placed on the map, and that point is looked up in the State Water Board’s drinking water service-area map. It names the public water system that serves the point and the system’s state ID.

That system is matched to an agency on file in your county. A matching state ID decides it. Without one, the names are compared: an exact match to the agency’s name or one of its other names first (“RIVERSIDE, CITY OF” is the City of Riverside), then the longest of its names that the system’s name contains. When two agencies match equally, or two systems cover the point, the page says so and asks you to choose, or to confirm, the supplier on your water bill.

Wholesale agencies sell water to other agencies, so they are never matched as your supplier. A system with no agency on file is named as your supplier, with no rebate figure of its own.

The county’s parcel record gives the property type. When it has none, the page assumes a single-family home and says so, and you can change it. A program is quoted only when it lists your kind of property, or one the check accepts in its place (an apartment building can use a program for businesses, then one for homes). When none does, the page names the program and links it, with no figure.

Your estimate is your lawn area times the rate, held to the program’s area cap and dollar cap. Below the program’s minimum, the page says so instead of giving an amount.

Some regional agencies run a lawn program that every customer in their area can use:

• Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, inside its service area in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties, placed by its own member-agency map, or by DWR’s water-district map when that does not answer.
• Santa Clara Valley Water District, anywhere in Santa Clara County.

When your supplier is not on file, has no lawn program on file, or its own rate has not been read within 60 days, and your address is inside one of these areas, the regional program’s rate prints as “at least”, because your supplier may add to it. A supplier with no lawn program of its own adds nothing, so there the regional rate is the figure itself. The floor is always the program at the top of the region, never the rate of a member agency in between.

It does not print when:

• Your supplier’s own program has been read within 60 days. Its own figure prints instead.
• Your supplier’s own program is closed, or does not list your kind of property. The page says that instead.
• The regional program itself has not been read within 60 days, does not pay by the square foot, or does not list your kind of property.

When the regional rate cannot print, a supplier with no row or no lawn program of its own still gets the regional program’s name and page. A supplier with an unconfirmed program of its own keeps that program’s name and page.

Lekua does not take or submit rebate applications. You apply to your water agency yourself, and most programs need approval before you remove any lawn. No agency endorses Turf Check. Figures are estimates, and programs change and pause.

Every program on file, with its last-read date, is in the open dataset. Check an address.