The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta supplies a significant part of California's water. Recent environmental issues in the Delta (habitat protection, endangered species, problems with levees) have caused state government officials to look at comprehensive solutions to fix the area. One element of fixing the problems in the Delta includes water conservation.
- Only urban water use and conservation is addressed. Agricultural use is not addressed in this plan.
- Only drinkable (potable) water is addressed. Water recycling, such as Orange County's groundwater basin recharging plan, is not addressed.
- Water which is supplied by customers for their own use is not addressed.
- Only per capita use, not total regional or state use, is addressed.
What the Plan Does
- Water survey programs for residential customers
- Residential plumbing retrofit
- System water audits, leak detection and repair
- Metering with commodity rates for all new connections and retrofit of existing unmetered connections
- Large landscape conservation programs and incentives
- High efficiency clothes-washing machine financial incentive program
- Public information programs
- School education programs
- Conservation programs for commercial, industrial, institutional (CII) accounts
- Wholesale agency assistance programs
- Retail conservation pricing
- Conservation coordinator
- Water waste prohibition
- Residential ultra-low flush toilet (ULFT) replacement programs
- Limiting irrigation to two days a week or less.
- Encourage climate-appropriate landscaping to reduce water usage.
- Expand programs to use graywater and rainwater for landscape irrigation.
- Convert all unmetered connections to metered connections.
- Set state standards for high efficiency clothes washers.
- Set and support landscape irrigation equipment efficiency standards.
- Accelerate replacement of toilets, showerheads and urinals which do not meet current water usage standards.
- Find ways to make dishwashers, on-premises laundries (hospitals, universities, prisons), commercial ice operations, building cooling and hot water systems, and vehicle washing systems more efficient.
- Implement conservation pricing to encourage water conservation.
- Create mechanisms for funding water system upgrades.
- Use enforcement actions to prevent waste and unreasonable use of water.
- Increase use of recycled, graywater, rain water and storm water.
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