Water conservation made legal: Water budgets and California law

Abstract

California is among the most progressive states regarding cost‐of‐service requirements for water rates. With the increasing need for water conservation, and increasing popularity of water budget rate structures, recent changes to California laws should be of interest to water utility managers. Water rates are regulated at the state level. The evolution of these regulations in California created a situation in which utility managers were not certain if conservation‐oriented rate structures would be upheld in court. The recent passage of Assembly Bill 2882 has lifted this uncertainty and set a precedent for other states. The growing popularity of water budget rate structures may accelerate even more now that they have been validated by California lawmakers. Allocation‐based inclining‐block rates were until recently infeasible because of the data management and lack of political will. The tide has changed in favor of such rates with the development of new information management tools, the public awareness of on‐going water resource issues, and the green light from lawmakers.

Sensitivity analysis of municipal drinking water distribution system energy use to system properties

“…Long-term education, increasing the ''water productivity'' (Postel 2000), practices of water conservation techniques such as low-flush toilets and efficient showers, and of acceptable pricing restructuring such as ''increasing block rate, time of day pricing, water surcharges, and seasonal rates'' (EPA 2009a) would help promote water conservation, thereby promoting energy savings. For example, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's new proposed pricing structure to promote the reduction of water use by 15% (US Water News Online 2009) and the Water Budget-based water conservation law (''AB 2882'') in California (Hildebrand et al 2009) are two regulatory initiatives that will promote water conservation. In addition, Albuquerque, New Mexico's reduction in per capita water consumption by 20% in 9 years (1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004) (Vickers 2001) is an example of successful water conservation.…”