Recommendations on extended emergency regulations for urban water conservation from California SWRCB

The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) recently released draft comments and staff recommendations concerning the extended emergency regulations for urban water conservation that are scheduled to run thru October 31, 2016.

California urban water suppliers had proposed further refinement to the conservation tiers that were originally adopted May 5, 2015 and then extended on Nov. 13, 2015. Some of the factors that the urban water suppliers and other stakeholders sought refinement for included consideration of temperature, population growth/seasonal population, use of drought resilient supplies and groundwater credits.

If adopted, some of these recommendations could have a beneficial effect on golf courses using urban potable water supplies.

The SWRCB recommended a climate adjustment in the Emergency Regulation that reduces the conservation requirement by up to 4 percentage points for water suppliers located in the warmest regions of the state. The climate adjustment would be based on each urban water supplier’s approximate service area ET for the months of July through September as compared to statewide average ET for the same months.

Additionally, a formula was recommended to adjust urban water supplier conservation standards to account for water efficient growth since 2013. The adjustment will be equal to the ratio of the additional volume of water used since 2013 to the baseline water use for 2013, multiplied by the water supplier’s conservation standard.

Lastly, the SWRCB recommended a one-tier (four percentage point) reduction to the conservation standard of urban water suppliers using new drought resilient water supplies. The credit would apply to urban water suppliers that certify, and provide documentation upon request, that at least 4 percent of its potable supply is comprised of indirect potable reuse of coastal wastewater (the creation and use of which does not injure another legal user of water or the environment) or desalinated seawater developed since 2013.

All credits and adjustments are capped to allow up to a maximum of a four percentage point decrease to any individual water supplier’s conservation standard (tier).

The recommendations did not include additional credits for non-potable recycled use, relaxing conservation requirements for isolated hydrogeological regions or changing the process for assigning conservation tiers to account for year round residential per capita water use. View the draft comments in their entirety. A final draft and formal vote on the refinements to the extended regulations is expected in early February.