City of Lomita Publishes 2020 Urban Water Management Plan

The Lomita City Council voted unanimously during their May 18 regular meeting to adopt the 2020 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP), which includes newly revised drought policies for the Lomita community.

What is an Urban Water Management Plan?

Prepared every five years, the UWMP acts as a long term resource planning tool for water agencies and is a source of information to guide updates to general plans and beyond. The plan describes and evaluates reasonable and practical efficient water uses, recycling and conservation activities to ensure adequate and reliable water supplies. Factors considered while developing the URMP include: current & projected land uses, potential water supply projects, seismic risk assessments, five year drought projections and more.

What changed in the Urban Water Management Plan?

Recent drought conditions in California have significantly depleted water supply and pose a challenge to many agencies throughout the State. During any water shortages, the City has the ability to meet water demands by applying a new six-phase conservation plan. The UWMP guidebook refers to this plan as the “Water Shortage Contingency Plan” or “WSCP”. The City’s WSCP imposes six stages of increasing restrictions on water use and management responses based on the severity of the drought conditions or supply shortage. The stages are based on the Department of Water Resources’s established criteria as shown in the table below.

Shortage StageRestriction TypeWater Supply Reduction Target
IMandatory10%
IIMandatory20%
IIIMandatory30%
IVMandatory40%
VMandatory50%
VIMandatory>50%

The table indicates the water supply reduction in percent of average water supply. In the event of a water shortage, the City Council will implement the appropriate water conservation phase by resolution.

What does this mean for me?

Proactive water usage adjustments are needed to combat water shortages during drought conditions. To ensure ample water supply for the City and compliance with State regulations, the City will enforce the following prohibitions on water use, including, but not limited to:

The City’s water system has redundancy in its water supplies and once the Cypress Upgrade project is complete, will have nearly one week of storage to supply its residents. However, to meet the most basic water needs of its residents during a severe shortage may prove to be challenging without the City’s residents voluntarily conserving water.

The prohibitions on water use during water shortages will require updates to the City’s Municipal Water Code, and the code revision will take place at a future City Council meeting. Lomita’s 2020 UWMP will be filed by July 1, 2021 with the California Department of Water Resources, as required by the California Urban Water Management Planning Act.

The City is committed to sharing information and helping community members understand where their water comes from. Residents are encouraged to visit www.LomitaWater.com to find all the latest water-related information and sign up for Lomita Water News Alerts.

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