HB 012: WATER BUDGET RATE STRUCTURES

An Act Relating To The Environment; Amending Sections Of The Environmental Improvement Act To Provide For Water Budget Rate Structures As A Condition For Department Of Environment Support For Water System Financing

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HIGH HB 012
WATER BUDGET RATE STRUCTURES

Legislative URL:

HB 012 on nmlegis.gov

Emergency Clause:

No

Germane:

N/A

Location:

HAWC

Action:

HPREF [3] HAWC/HGEIC-HAWC API.

Issue(s):

Water Quality & Supply

Related Legislators

Bill Sponsor:

Bill McCamley

Related Documents

Downloads:

Introduced
Fiscal Impact Report

Summary

This bill would amend the Environmental Improvement Act to provide for water budget rate structures as a condition for Department of Environment support for water system financing. Public water systems would be required to adopt and maintain a water budget rate structure and to direct the Department of Environment to adopt rules for implementing water budget rate

structures no later than June 30, 2016.

A “water budget rate structure” is defined as a personalized water budget each month designed to meet customer-specific indoor and outdoor water needs, regardless of household or yard size. Residential water budgets are calculated based on each customer’s landscaped area of the customer’s parcel, real-time localized weather data and the number of residents in each home, among other factors. Residential water budgets vary from month to month based upon the weather and the amount of billing days in each cycle. A water budget rate structure shall be

calculated using:

(1)    sixty-five gallons of water per person per day;

(2)    the number of people in the household;

(3)    the number of days in the billing cycle;

(4)    the amount of irrigated acreage per parcel;

(5)    the daily evapotranspiration; and

(6)    plant factors.”

The bill further provides that the department shall provide sampling and analysis service only to water systems that have a water budget rate structure approved by the department.

A potential benefit of the bill might be that, depending on how they are implemented and enforced, water budget rate structures and customer-specific residential water budgets could result in a significant reduction in excessive water use by residential consumers. A concern might be whether the workload involved with determining the water budget rate structures would overwhelm the resources of the entities developing them and affect their ability to perform other responsibilities.