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

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Santa Ana 2020 Urban Water Management Plan arcadis.com 1-1 1 INTRODUCTION AND UWMP OVERVIEW The City of Santa Ana (City) prepared this 2020 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP or Plan) to submit to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to satisfy the UWMP Act of 1983 (Act or UWMP Act) and subsequent California Water Code (Water Code) requirements. The City is a retail water supplier that provides water to its residents and other customers using the imported potable water supply obtained from its regional wholesaler, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MET), local groundwater from the Orange County Groundwater Basin (OC Basin), and recycled water from the Orange County Water District (OCWD). The City, as one of MET’s 26 member agencies, prepared this 2020 UWMP in collaboration with MET, Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC), OCWD, and other key agencies. UWMPs are comprehensive documents that present an evaluation of a water supplier’s reliability over a long-term (20-25 year) horizon. In response to the changing climatic conditions and regulatory updates since the 2015 UWMP, the City has been proactively managing its water supply and demand. The water loss audit program, water conservation measures and efforts for increased self-reliance in order to reduce dependency on imported water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (Delta) are some of the water management efforts that the City is a part of to maintain the reliability of water supply for its service area. This 2020 UWMP provides an assessment of the present and future water supply sources and demands within the City’s service area. It presents an update to the 2015 UWMP on City’s water resource needs, water use efficiency programs, water reliability assessment and strategies to mitigate water shortage conditions. It presents a new 2020 Water Shortage Contingency Plan (WSCP) designed to prepare for and respond to water shortages. This 2020 UWMP contains all elements to meet compliance of the new requirements of the Act as amended since 2015. Overview of Urban Water Management Plan Requirements The UWMP Act enacted by California legislature requires every urban water supplier (Supplier) providing water for municipal purposes to more than 3,000 customers or supplying more than 3,000 acre-feet (AF) of water annually to prepare, adopt, and file an UWMP with the California DWR every five years in the years ending in zero and five. For this 2020 UWMP cycle, DWR placed emphasis on achieving improvements for long term reliability and resilience to drought and climate change in California. Legislation related to water supply planning in California has evolved to address these issues, namely Making Conservation a Way of Life [Assembly Bill (AB) 1668 and Senate Bill (SB) 606] and Water Loss Performance Standard SB555. New UWMP requirements in 2020 are a direct result of these new water regulations. Two complementary components were added to the 2020 UWMP. First is the WSCP to assess the Supplier’s near term 5-year drought risk assessment (DRA) and provide a structured guide for the Supplier to deal with water shortages. Second is the Annual Water Supply Demand Assessment (WSDA) to assess the current year plus one dry year i.e., short-term demand/supply outlook. Analyses over near- and long-term horizons together will provide a more complete picture of Supplier’s reliability and will serve to inform appropriate actions it needs to take to build up capacity over the long term.