Urban retail water suppliers: reporting.

(1) Existing law requires the state to achieve a 20% reduction in urban per capita water use in California by December 31, 2020. Existing law requires each urban retail water supplier to develop urban water use targets and an interim urban water use target, in accordance with specified requirements. Existing law requires each urban retail water supplier, on or before October 1, 2017, and on or before October 1 of each year thereafter, to submit a completed and validated water loss audit report for the previous calendar year or previous fiscal year as prescribed by rules adopted by the Department of Water Resources. This bill would require each urban retail water supplier to submit a completed and validated water loss audit report as prescribed by the department on or before October 1 of each year until October 1, 2023, if reporting on a calendar year basis, and on or before January 1 of each year until January 1, 2024, if reporting on a fiscal year basis. The bill would require on or before January 1, 2024, and on or before January 1 of each year thereafter, each urban retail water supplier to submit a completed and validated water loss audit report for the previous calendar year or previous fiscal year as part of an existing report relating to its urban water use. (2) Existing law requires an urban retail water supplier to calculate an urban water use objective no later than November 1, 2023, and by November 1 every year thereafter, and its actual urban water use by those same dates. Existing law requires an urban retail water supplier to submit a report to the department relating to its urban water use by those dates. This bill would revise these dates to January 1, 2024, and by January 1 every year thereafter. (3) Existing law, on and after November 1, 2023, authorizes the State Water Resources Control Board to issue informational orders pertaining to water production, water use, and water conservation to an urban retail water supplier that does not meet its urban water use objective. This bill would instead authorize the board to issue an informational order pertaining to water production, water use, and water conservation to an urban retail water supplier that does not meet its urban water use objective on and after January 1, 2024. (4) Existing law, the Urban Water Management Planning Act, requires every public and private urban water supplier that directly or indirectly provides water for municipal purposes to prepare and adopt an urban water management plan. The act requires an urban water management plan to be updated on or before July 1, in years ending in 6 and 1, incorporating updated and new information from the 5 years preceding the plan update. The act requires each urban retail water supplier to adopt and submit to the department by January 1, 2024, a supplement to the adopted 2020 plan that includes a narrative describing the water demand management measures that the supplier plans to implement. The bill would recast the urban water management narrative requirement to instead require, as part of the first annual report the urban retail water supplier submits to the department, a narrative that describes the water demand management measures that the supplier plans to implement to achieve its urban water use objective by January 1, 2027. (5) The act requires an urban water supplier to conduct an annual water supply and demand assessment and submit an annual shortage assessment report to the department consistent with the supplier's water shortage contingency plan by June 1 of each year. This bill would revise that deadline to July 1 of each year.