Large error log files

Hello,
We are seeing large error log files plug up our server because of the following commands. The issue is in plesk and their requirement to used their prefered date function and they refuse to fix the issue claiming it is functioning normally. But just keeps filling up the error log files. Is there a patch for this to use the date.timezone function? Seems that Cpanel and WMH panel do not share this problem. Our short term solution is to trim the error log file periodically and migrate to a VPS that runs WMH or similar.

[Wed May 03 12:13:10 2017] [warn] [client 51.255.65.19] mod_fcgid: stderr: In file: /var/www/vhosts/wmpllc.org/httpdocs/ojs-2.4.2/lib/pkp/classes/scheduledTask/ScheduledTaskDAO.inc.php
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: In file: /var/www/vhosts/xxx.org/httpdocs/ojs-2.4.2/lib/pkp/classes/scheduledTask/ScheduledTaskDAO.inc.php
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: At line: 46
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: Stacktrace:
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: Server info:
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: OS: Linux
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: PHP Version: 5.3.3
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: Apache Version: N/A
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: DB Driver: mysql
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: DB server version: 5.1.73
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: ojs2 has produced an error
[Wed May 03 12:11:04 2017] [warn] [client 180.76.15.153] mod_fcgid: stderr: Message: WARNING: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system’s timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected ‘America/New_York’ for ‘EDT/-4.0/DST’ instead

Can you set PHP’s date.timezone via a .htaccess file?