BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 7XXXXXXX|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 7XXXXXXX
Author: Steinberg (D)
Amended: 11/3/09
Vote: 21
SENATE FLOOR : 21-13, 11/02/09
AYES: Alquist, Calderon, Cedillo, Corbett, DeSaulnier,
Ducheny, Florez, Kehoe, Leno, Liu, Lowenthal, Maldonado,
Negrete McLeod, Padilla, Pavley, Price, Romero, Simitian,
Steinberg, Wiggins, Wright
NOES: Ashburn, Cogdill, Cox, Denham, Dutton, Harman,
Hollingsworth, Huff, Strickland, Walters, Wolk, Wyland,
Yee
NO VOTE RECORDED: Aanestad, Benoit, Correa, Hancock,
Oropeza, Runner
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 45-12, 11/3/09
(Roll call not available)
SUBJECT : Water conservation
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill requires the state to achieve a 20
percent reduction in urban per capita water use by December
31, 2020, requires agricultural water management plans and
efficient water management practices for agricultural water
suppliers, and promotes expanded development of sustainable
water supplies at the regional level.
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SB 7XXXXXXX
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Assembly Amendments deleted the contingency language
relating to SB 5XXXXXXX.
ANALYSIS :
Specifics of SB 7XXXXXXX
1. Establishes statewide urban water conservation target of
10 percent by 2015, and 20 percent by 2020.
2. Establishes processes for urban water suppliers to meet
the conservation targets:
A. Requires urban retail water suppliers,
individually or on a regional basis, to develop an
urban water use target by July 1, 2011.
B. Provides four methodologies for urban water
suppliers to choose from to set and achieve their
water use target:
(1) Twenty percent reduction in baseline daily
per capita use.
(2) A combination of efficiency standards for
residential indoor use (55 gallons per capita
daily), residential outdoor use (Model Water
Efficient Landscape Ordinance), and commercial,
industrial, and institutional (CII) use (10
percent reduction).
(3) A five percent reduction in the Department
of Water Resources (DWR) regional targets.
(4) A method to be developed by DWR by December
31, 2010.
C. Requires a minimum five percent reduction in base
water use by 2020 for all urban water suppliers.
D. Allows recycled water to count toward meeting
urban supplier's water use target if recycled water
offsets potable water demands.
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E. Allows urban suppliers to consider certain
differences in their local conditions when
determining compliance.
F. Requires urban water suppliers to hold public
hearings to allow for community input on the
supplier's implementation plan for meeting their
water use target, and requires the implementation to
avoid placing a disproportionate burden on any
customer sector.
G. Conditions eligibility for water management grants
and loans on an urban water supplier's compliance
with meeting the requirements established by the
bill.
3. Prohibits urban suppliers from requiring changes that
reduce process water -- defined in the bill as water
used in production of a product -- and allows urban
water supplier to exclude process water from the
development of the urban water target if substantial
amount of its water deliveries are for industrial use.
4. Requires DWR review and reporting on urban water
management plans and report to the Legislature by 2016
on progress in meeting the 20 percent statewide target,
including recommendations on changes to the standards or
targets in order to achieve the 20 percent target.
5. Creates a CII Task Force to develop best management
practices, assess the potential for statewide water
savings if the best management practices are
implemented, and report to the Legislature.
6. Re-establishes agricultural water management planning
program.
A. Defines "agricultural water supplier" as one that
delivers water to 10,000 or more of irrigated acres,
excluding recycled water, but exempts suppliers
serving less than 25,000 irrigated areas unless
funding is provided to the supplier for those
purposes.
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B. Requires development and implementation of
agricultural water management plans, with specified
components by 2012, with five-year updates.
C. Requires DWR to review plans and report to the
Legislature on status and effectiveness.
D. Requires two "critical" efficient water management
practices -- measurement and pricing -- and only if
locally cost-effective for 14 additional practices.
E. Conditions eligibility for water management grants
and loans on an agricultural water suppliers'
compliance with meeting the requirements for
implementation of efficient water management
practices.
F. Establishes agricultural water supplier reporting
requirements on agricultural efficient water
management practices.
7. Requires DWR to promote implementation of regional water
resource management practices through increased
incentives/removal of barriers and specifies potential
changes.
8. Requires DWR, in consultation with the State Water
Resources Control Board, to develop or update statewide
targets as to recycled water, brackish groundwater
desalination, and urban stormwater runoff.
9. Takes effect only if SB 1, SB 5, and SB 7 of the 2009-10
Seventh Extraordinary Session of the Legislature are
enacted and become effective.
Background
Under existing law, the California Water Plan is accepted
as the master plan that guides the orderly and coordinated
control, protection, conservation, development, management
and efficient utilization of the water resources of the
state. DWR is required to update the Water Plan on or
before December 31, 2003, and every five years thereafter.
The plan shall include a discussion of various strategies
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that may be pursued in order to meet the future water needs
of the state.
The Urban Water Management Planning Act requires urban
water suppliers to prepare and submit Urban Water
Management Plans to DWR every five years on or before
December 31, in years ending in five and zero. Among other
things, the plans are required to:
1. Describe the reliability of the water supply by water
year type (average, single dry year, etc.).
2. Quantify, to the extent records are available, past,
current, and projected water use, identifying the uses
among water use sectors (residential, commercial, etc.).
3. Describe each water demand management measure currently
being implemented, or scheduled for implementation.
The Agricultural Water Management Planning Act required
agricultural water suppliers that supply more than 50,000
acre-feet of water annually to develop agricultural water
management plans by 1992. Among other things, and to the
extent information was available, the reports were to
address the following:
1. Current water conservation and reclamation practices
being used.
2. Plans for changing current water conservation plans.
3. Conservation educational services being used.
4. Whether the supplier, through improved irrigation water
management, has a significant opportunity to do one or
both of the following:
A. Save water by means of reduced evapotranspiration,
evaporation, or reduction of flows to unusable water
bodies that fail to serve further beneficial uses.
B. Reduce the quantity of highly saline or toxic
drainage water.
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Existing law makes the terms of, and eligibility for, a
water management grant or loan made to an urban water
supplier and awarded or administered by the department,
state board, or California Bay-Delta Authority or its
successor agency conditioned on the implementation of the
water demand management measures identified in the Urban
Water Management Planning Act.
Under Federal law (Section 210 Public Law 97-293 of 1982)
all Central Valley Project contractors are required to
develop water conservation plans. In 1993, the Central
Valley Project Improvement Act Section 3405(e) required the
Bureau of Reclamation to develop criteria to determine the
adequacy of the water conservation plans required by
Section 210. The Bureau adopted the criteria in 1993, and
the most recent update was done in 2005.
On February 28, 2008, Governor Schwarzenegger sent a letter
to Senators Perata, Steinberg, and Machado in response to
their concerns that his Administration was unilaterally
beginning work on a "peripheral canal." In that letter,
the Governor identified administrative actions he was
considering as part of a comprehensive solution in the
Delta. Included in that letter was the following "key
element:"
A plan to achieve a 20 percent reduction in per capita
water use statewide by 2020. Conservation is one of the
key ways to provide water for Californians and protect
and improve the Delta ecosystem. A number of efforts are
already underway to expand conservation programs, but I
plan to direct state agencies to develop this more
aggressive plan and implement it to the extent permitted
by current law. I would welcome legislation to
incorporate this goal into statute.
Comments
Urban Water Conservation . This bill establishes a
statewide target to reduce urban per capita water use by 20
percent by 2020. This target is consistent with the
Governor's February 2008 proposal. The Delta Vision
Strategic Plan also recommended legislation requiring
"Urban water purveyors to implement measures to achieve a
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20 percent reduction in urban per capita water use
statewide throughout California by December 31, 2020."
This bill requires urban retail water suppliers,
individually or on a regional basis, to develop an urban
water use target by December 31, 2010, requires each urban
water supplier to meet their target by 2020, and to meet an
interim target (half of their 2020 target) by 2015.
Flexibility . This bill provides options for how water
agencies can achieve higher levels of water conservation
but requires those options to meet a per capita reduction
in water use. This bill sets the "20 by 2020" target (and
the interim 2015 target) for the entire state and then
allows water agencies to choose one of four methods for
determining their own water-use target for 2020. Water
suppliers also can choose to join with a broader group of
suppliers to meet the targets regionally. Finally, this
bill provides urban water suppliers with the option of
shifting more water use to recycled water to meet their
targets.
CII Water Management . This bill restricts urban water
suppliers from imposing conservation requirements on
process water. Other sections of the proposal address
other CII concerns, including requiring urban water
suppliers to avoid disproportionate impacts on any one
sector and requiring an open transparent process for all
water customers to review and provide input into the water
supplier implementation plan. There are also no mandated
conservation requirements or targets in the bill for CII.
Agricultural Water Management . For agriculture, this bill
relies on implementation of efficient water management
practices (EWMPs) for water use, which have been developed,
at least in part, by the Agricultural Water Management
Council. This bill creates two EWMP categories:
"critical" that all agricultural water suppliers (i.e.
measurement and pricing structures) must implement and
"additional" EWMPs that must be implemented if the measures
are locally cost effective and technically feasible. The
two mandatory EWMPs are already required of all federal
water contractors (e.g. Westlands Water District and Friant
Water Authority) since 1992 under the Central Valley
Project Improvement Act.
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Agricultural Water Management Plans . This bill
reauthorizes dormant provisions of the Water Code that
required agricultural water suppliers to prepare
agricultural water management plans. This bill places
agricultural water suppliers on an equal footing with urban
suppliers who have been required to prepare and submit
water management plans for approximately 15 years. This
bill defines agricultural water suppliers as those with
10,000 acres of irrigated land, but exempts from the bill's
requirements any supplier serving less than 25,000 of
irrigated land if the state does not provide funding for
implementation.
Sustainable Water Management . This bill requires DWR to
develop incentives for sustainable water management and
alternative water supplies such as brackish water
desalination and stormwater recovery.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Unable to verify at time of writing)
Unknown at this time.
OPPOSITION : (Unable to verify at time of writing)
Unknown at this time.
DLW:mw 11/3/09 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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