Indoor Residential Water Use Standard

Published: July 24, 2021

The Basics

  • The indoor residential standard applies to both single family and multi-family housing units within a supplier’s service area.
  • The indoor residential standard is based on a gallons per capita per day metric and will decrease over time (details below).  The state will not enforce indoor budgets for individual residential parcels. 
  • Suppliers multiply population served by the indoor residential standard from DWR by 365 days to produce the supplier level annual indoor water use budget.
  • Changes to the current statute will require additional/future legislative actions.  Until that time, the current statute is what suppliers will be required to meet (details below).

Compliance Year

Allowable GPCD

2020-2024

55

2025-2029

47

2030 Onward

42

 

Updates

August 2022

  • The amended version (see June update for details) of SB 1157 pass through the legislature and is headed to Governor Newsom's desk for signature. This bill mirrors the joint DWR and SWRCB's recommendations: 2020: 55 gpcd | 2025: 47 gpcd | 2030: 42 gpcd.

June 2022

  • June 14th: SB 1157 passed the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee. The bill has been amended to include the requirement that DWR, in coordination with the SWRCB, conduct necessary studies and investigations to assess and quantify the economic benefit and impacts of meeting the 2030 indoor residential use standard on water, wastewater, and recycled water systems. The bill would require DWR to summarize the findings of these studies and investigations in a report to the Legislature by January 1, 2027. The bill would require, on or before January 1, 2028, DWR, in coordination with the SWRCB, to submit a report to the Legislature on the progress of urban retail water suppliers towards achieving their urban water use objective.

April 2022

  • April 21st: SB 1157 (Hertzberg) passed the Senate (28 ayes and 9 noes) and has been sent to Assembly.
  • April 18th: SB 1157 was ordered to the Senate Floor by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
  • April 5th: SB 1157 passed the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee on April 5th (7 ayes and 2 noes). The bill is now headed to the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill is scheduled to be heard on April 18th.

March 2022

  • Assemblymember Friedman did not introduce a new version of AB 1434.
  • In February 2022, Senator Hertzberg has introduced his own bill, SB 1157, related to the indoor residential water use standard in the Senate. His bill mirrors the joint DWR and SWRCB's recommendations: 2020: 55 gpcd | 2025: 47 gpcd | 2030: 42 gpcd.

February 2022

Update on AB 1434:

"Assemblymember Friedman has decided to hold AB 1434 in the Assembly Appropriations committee.  She will be working on introducing a new bill this year that will mirror the November 30th DWR report to the Legislature recommending that urban water suppliers achieve an indoor water use efficiency standard of 55 gallons per capita per day by 2023, declining to 47 gallons per day by 2025, and 42 gallons by 2030 and beyond. 

Her office welcomes the continued engagement from stakeholders interested in the issue.  Also, feel free to share this information with others.

Jim Metropulos
Office of Assemblymember Friedman"

December 2021

On November 30, 2021, The Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) submitted a report to the Legislature recommending that urban water suppliers achieve an indoor water use efficiency standard of 55 gallons per capita per day by 2023, declining to 47 gallons per day by 2025, and 42 gallons by 2030 and beyond. Read more

August 2021

DWR released a draft indoor recommendations document in May 2021. The recommendations are lower than outlined in SB 606/AB 1668 (below table). An array of water agencies, NGOs, and coalitions submitted comments; you can see them all on DWR’s SharePoint here

DWR hosted an additional stakeholder meeting on July 19th, and we are now waiting for DWR to provide the finalized report to the Legislature in August 2021. As written into SB 606/AB 1668 – the Legislature is responsible to setting the indoor standard, so legislative action will be required for the recommendations to replace the current statute.

Timeline of events:

  • May 11 – DWR Draft Report proposed:
    • 2020: 55 gpcd (no change in current statute)
    • 2025: 47 gpcd (5.5 gpcd less than current statute)
    • 2030: 42 gpcd (8 gpcd less than current statute
  • July 19 – Additional DWR Workshop and last opportunity for stakeholder comments
  • Mid-August – DWR expects to release final report with recommended standard (*recommended standard requires legislation to go into effect)

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