NOTICE: Urban Water Use Objective Reporting Template Posted

From the Department of Water Resources:

Dear Urban Water Suppliers and Other Interested Parties,

The State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) recently announced that it received approval from the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) for the Making Conservation a California Way of Life regulation (OAL file number 2024-0806-01S, California Code of Regulations Title 23, Division 3, Chapter 3.5, Article 1 Sections 965 through 978 when published [23 CCR 965-978]). This regulation codifies the relevant California Water Code Section 10608 et seq. urban water use objective standards and reporting requirements. A copy of the approved regulation is available at: final-text-conservation-way-of-life.pdf (ca.gov).

California Water Code Section 10609.24 requires urban retail water suppliers to submit the report on their urban water use objective, actual water use, and implementation of commercial, industrial, and institutional (CII) performance measures (urban water use objective report), in accordance with 23 CCR 965-978, to the Department of Water Resources (DWR) by January 1, 2024, and annually each year thereafter.  The next report is due January 1, 2025.

Pursuant to the Making Conservation a Way of Life Regulation, urban retail water suppliers must also submit their urban water use objective report to the State Water Board using a format developed by the State Water Board.  The SWB has developed the required reporting form and accompanying guidance document for using the form and reporting in accordance with their regulation.

Because the urban water use objective report must be submitted to both DWR and the State Water Board. The State Water Board-developed reporting form and guidance package (0-ReportingPackage_FY2324_v1.1.zip)** is being hosted on DWR’s Water Use Efficiency Data Portal’s Resources for Urban Water Suppliers, available at: https://wuedata.water.ca.gov/manage_resources.asp?reportType=urban. Although the reporting form and guidance is currently available for download and use, DWR is still in the process of updating the portal to accept report submittals for compliance with both California Water Code submittal to DWR and Making Conservation a California Way of Life regulation submittal to the State Water Board.

The SWB will provide information about upcoming reporting form webinars soon. For more information about the Making Conservation a California Way of Life regulation, please visit the State Water Board’s website.

If your agency staff would like to receive future communications specific to this regulation, please email ORPP-WaterConservation@waterboards.ca.gov to be added to their distribution list.


**Please note that a user caught an error in the “Objective” tab of the originally posted template. The equation for “Target-based Total Use” (B26) accidentally omitted “indirect recycled water excluded from the target” (B25) in the sum. If you have 0 indirect recycled water, you will not be impacted by this error and may continue to use version 1.0 of the form. Users with non-zero indirect recycled water should download the zip file with the v1.1 suffix from the WUE Data Portal