Drought planning: resiliency measures.

Senator Alvarado-Gil's drought planning legislation creates exemptions from water metering requirements for small water suppliers and schools facing financial constraints. The bill modifies existing law that requires water systems serving 15 to 2,999 connections to install meters and monitor leakage by 2032.

Under the proposed changes, water suppliers can receive exemptions from these requirements if they meet two conditions: they must either be seeking state funding, have been deemed ineligible, or face a lack of available state funding programs, and they must determine that raising local revenue through rate increases is not feasible. The exemptions apply specifically to the metering and leak monitoring mandates while leaving other drought resilience requirements unchanged, including groundwater monitoring, mutual aid participation, backup power supplies, and fire flow capacity standards.

The legislation maintains the existing implementation timeline through 2032 for water systems that do not qualify for exemptions. Small suppliers serving under 3,000 acre-feet annually and nontransient noncommunity water systems at schools must continue complying with all other drought planning measures outlined in current law.