Item 28 - Urban Water Management Plan and Water Shortage Contingency Plan

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Santa Ana 2020 Water Shortage Contingency Plan 2-7 MET’s Board of Directors originally adopted the WSAP in February 2008 to fairly distribute a limited amount of water supply and applies it through a detailed methodology to reflect a range of local conditions and needs of the region’s retail water consumers (MET, 2021a). The WSAP includes the specific formula for calculating member agency supply allocations and the key implementation elements needed for administering an allocation. MET’s WSAP is the foundation for the urban water shortage contingency analysis required under Water Code Section 10632 and is part of MET’s 2020 UWMP. MET’s WSAP was developed in consideration of the principles and guidelines in MET’s 1999 WSDM Plan with the core objective of creating an equitable “needs-based allocation.” The WSAP’s formula seeks to balance the impacts of a shortage at the retail level while maintaining equity on the wholesale level for shortages of MET supplies of up to greater than 50%. The formula takes into account a number of factors, such as the impact on retail customers, growth in population, changes in supply conditions, investments in local resources, demand hardening aspects of water conservation savings, recycled water, extraordinary storage and transfer actions, and groundwater imported water needs. The formula is calculated in three steps: 1) based period calculations, 2) allocation year calculations, and 3) supply allocation calculations. The first two steps involve standard computations, while the third step contains specific methodology developed for the WSAP. Step 1: Base Period Calculations –The first step in calculating a member agency’s water supply allocation is to estimate their water supply and demand using a historical based period with established water supply and delivery data. The base period for each of the different categories of supply and demand is calculated using data from the two most recent non-shortage years. Step 2: Allocation Year Calculations –The next step in calculating the member agency’s water supply allocation is estimating water needs in the allocation year. This is done by adjusting the base period estimates of retail demand for population growth and changes in local supplies. Step 3: Supply Allocation Calculations –The final step is calculating the water supply allocation for each member agency based on the allocation year water needs identified in Step 2. In order to implement the WSAP, MET’s Board of Directors makes a determination on the level of the regional shortage, based on specific criteria, typically in April. The criteria used by MET includes, current levels of storage, estimated water supplies conditions, and projected imported water demands. The allocations, if deemed necessary, go into effect in July of the same year and remain in effect for a 12- month period. The schedule is made at the discretion of the Board of Directors (MET, 2021b). As demonstrated by the findings in MET’s 2020 UWMP both the Water Reliability Assessment and the Drought Risk Assessment (DRA) demonstrate that MET is able to mitigate the challenges posed by hydrologic variability, potential climate change, and regulatory risk on its imported supply sources through the significant storage capabilities it has developed over the last two decades, both dry-year and emergency storage (MET, 2021a). Although MET’s 2020 UWMP forecasts that MET will be able to meet projected imported demands throughout the projected period from 2025 to 2045, uncertainty in supply conditions can result in MET needing to implement its WSAP to preserve dry-year storage and curtail demands (MET, 2021b).