BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
460 (Wolk)
Hearing Date: 05/18/2009 Amended: 04/30/2009
Consultant: Brendan McCarthy Policy Vote: NR&W 11-0
SB 460 (Wolk)
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 460 would require urban and agricultural water
suppliers to report to an unspecified state agency on their
water use and plans to reduce water use through conservation and
efficiency. The unspecified agency would review those plans to
determine whether, collectively, the plans will allow the state
to reduce water use by 20 percent by 2020. The unspecified
agency would also be required to develop a database of water
use, efficiency, and conservation throughout the state.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Fund
Review of urban and $750 $1,500 $1,500 General
agricultural water plans
Development of water use Potentially up to
$5,000General
database
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the
Suspense file.
Under current law, urban water suppliers are required to submit
Urban Water Management Plans to the Department of Water
Resources every five years. These plans address a variety of
water supply issues, including current and projected water use
and information on demand management actions taken or proposed
to be taken by the supplier. An inactive section of the water
code required agricultural water suppliers over certain size to
develop water management plans addressing similar issues.
SB 460 would require urban water suppliers to include in their
existing Urban Water Management Plans additional information
about long-term plans to reduce water use through efficiency and
conservation, with a goal of reducing water use by 20 percent by
2020.
The bill would require urban water suppliers to submit their
plans to an unspecified state agency for evaluation. The
SB 460 (Wolk)
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unspecified agency would evaluate the plans, determine whether,
collectively, they will meet the statewide water use reduction
goal, and make recommendations to the suppliers. All urban water
suppliers would be required to submit annual progress reports.
Urban water suppliers that failed to submit required plans would
be ineligible for state loan or grant funds.
Similar to urban water suppliers, the bill would require
agricultural water suppliers, over an unspecified size, to
submit an agricultural water management plan to the unspecified
state agency. Agricultural water suppliers that failed to comply
would be ineligible for state loan or grant funds.
The bill would create a new, unspecified agency in state
government. The new agency would be required to review and
analyze data provided by urban and agricultural water suppliers.
The new agency would be required to assess whether the submitted
plans would collectively accomplish the statewide water use
reduction goal. The agency would provide recommendations to
water suppliers for improvements to their plans that will
further the state goals.
Under current law, the Department of Water Resources reviews
Urban Water Management Plans to ensure that they are complete
and have addressed all required issues. The cost of this ongoing
review is about $400,000 per year. The costs for a new state
agency to review and comment on both the urban and agricultural
water plans required under this bill, to analyze whether the
plans will collectively meet state goals, and to provide
recommendations to the water suppliers could be considerably
higher, potentially up to $1.5 million per year.
The new agency would be required to develop a statewide database
on water use, conservation, water use efficiency, and local
resource development. The state does not currently have a
database of this kind. Staff notes that AB 1404 (Laird, 2007)
required the State Water Board to develop a feasibility plan for
a database of water diversions, permits, and other water supply
information. Preliminary estimates of the cost to develop a
system with the required capability are about $10 million in
upfront costs. The database required under this bill may not be
as complex as that system, and hence the costs may be
significantly less. Nevertheless, the costs could be as high as
$5 million to develop the system.
SB 460 (Wolk)
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The agency would also be required to report to the Legislature
annually.
Staff notes that SB 261 (Dutton) requires urban water suppliers
to develop and implement plans to reduce water use by 20 percent
by 2020.