Drought Contingency Plans: Are You Prepared?

By Allison Kaminsky, Deputy Executive Director, Texas Rural Water Association

Every year, regions of Texas deal with drought to some degree. Though most concerning in summer months when irrigation and water use is at its peak, a drought can happen any time of year. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the longest duration of drought in Texas lasted 271 weeks beginning in May 2010 and ending in July 2015. When a system is in a time of drought, water emergency or high usage that requires conservation, having a Drought Contingency Plan in place will help curtail water use. Whether you have one in place or are working on developing one, it is important to know the essentials of a Drought Contingency Plan.

A Drought Contingency Plan should be comprehensive and should include all possible variables that will secure enough capacity to meet a drought event. If you need to start from scratch, do you know what you need to be looking for and what to include? If you already have one in place, have you audited it to ensure you’re not missing something important? Hopefully, this article will help you in either scenario.

First, let’s look at rules governing Drought Contingency Plans and how they apply to your system. The mandate requiring these plans for certain entities is found in Texas Water Code Section 11.1272. What needs to be contained within these plans, as well as filing requirements, are set forth in Title 30 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 288. The following entities must develop, implement, and submit a Drought Contingency Plan every five years: • Retail public water suppliers with more than 3,300 connections* Irrigation water providers (Irrigation Districts) Wholesale public water suppliers *It is important to note that retail public water suppliers with less than 3,300 connections still must prepare and adopt an updated Drought Contingency Plan and make the plan available for inspection by TCEQ, but they are not required to submit plans to TCEQ every 5 years.

According to these rules, the minimum requirements for these plans include the following: • A plan to actively inform the public and provide opportunity for public input A plan for continued public education and information Documentation of coordination with the regional water planning groups for the area A description of information to be monitored by the water supplier, and specific criteria for the initiation and termination of drought response stages, as well as explanation and rationale for the triggering criteria Drought or emergency response stages Targets for water use reductions Water supply or water demand management measures to be implemented at each stage of the plan, including limitations on non-essential water use and utilization of alternative water sources Initiation and termination procedures for each stage of drought response, including plans for notifying the public Procedures for granting variances to the plan Procedures for enforcement of mandatory water use restrictions, including specific penalties

As you can see from the requirements, a Drought Contingency Plan is not just an outline of stages you need to implement that you can copy and paste every five years to meet the reporting requirements. Instead, this plan is a detailed, complex document that helps systems prepare for and manage a drought event while attempting to minimize the economic, social and environmental impacts of a drought.

Public involvement and education are an essential first step in developing your plan, so be sure to get your community involved. Your instinct may be to want to leave the public out of the planning process, saying “nobody comes to the meetings” or “all they want is water,” but engaging with community stakeholders who are invested in

the planning process will help you get buy-in and will make for an easier implementation process. Some ways to do this include, but are not limited to, providing a public notice that the plan is being prepared, forming an advisory committee, holding public meetings, conducting surveys and distributing a draft plan for the public to review and comment on prior to its formal adoption.

To help guide you in your details, there are several things you should consider at the outset and plan to include in your drought response plan. • Goals and objectives: Clearly define your system’s goals and objectives, including targets for reduced consumption, customer restrictions, minimum flow requirements, etc. Supply and Demand: Identify existing and potential water sources and look at trends relating to water demand. When considering demand, you should look at current averages and peaks, as well as historic and projected future demand trends. Drought Index: Define system-specific drought indicators and indices that will help you monitor and assess the severity and duration of drought events. These could include ground and/or surface water storage, stream flows, soil moisture, rainfall deficit, well drawdown levels, etc. Mitigation Measures: Identify potential mitigation measures and assess their potential impacts on the system and the community. Mitigation measures could range from water audits and public education to surcharges and rationing.

Once you have identified and defined these elements, you can get to work on creating your drought response stages that structure your response strategy. Most Drought Contingency Plans have between three to five stages that represent a gradual approach, escalating your response tactics as you progress though the stages. Utilizing drought indicators and indices as benchmarks, you can define what triggers each stage of your plan. Having empirical data supporting the progression of these stages helps you determine if you are responding appropriately, helps you explain the rationale for selecting your criteria as required in your plan, and also helps with public acceptance of the mitigation measures that come with them.

Paired with your response stages will be the mitigation tactics that will be implemented when that stage is activated. These should be related to the severity of the drought situation and the specific water use reduction targets for each stage. These mitigation tactics should include best management practices for reduction in water demand, such as restrictions or bans on nonessential water use, and also best practices for water supply management, such as acquisition of alternative water supplies.

It is important to coordinate with your regional water planning group to ensure your Drought Contingency Plan is consistent with the appropriate approved regional water plans. As such, one of the requirements of your plan is to provide documentation of this coordination. An example of this would be to include a copy of a cover letter indicating the plan was provided to the regional planning group. If you are not already familiar with your regional water planning group, an interactive map of each region with relevant contact information can be found on the Texas Water Development Board’s website at http://twdb.texas.gov/ waterplanning/rwp/regions/index.asp.

The TCEQ has developed guidance and model forms to create a Drought Contingency Plan for each type of entity that is required to have one. These can be found at TCEQ’s website at https:// www.tceq.texas.gov/permitting/water_rights/wr_ technical-resources/contingency.html. The Texas Rural Water Association also has resources to help. The Texas Rural Water Association’s Sample Tariff contains a model Drought Contingency and Emergency Water Demand Management Plan that meets the TCEQ’s requirements and can be adapted to meet the specific needs of your system. We also have specialists available that can review your Drought Contingency Plan and provide input and guidance. For more information, please contact us at 512-472-8591.

Ask Larry

A Q&A column with TRWA Technical Assistance Director Larry Bell

Q: Our local volunteer fire department (VFD) wants our WSC to allow them to fill customer pools using or other unknown uses. In at least one case I am aware of a fire department that broke a hydrant late at night refused to take responsibility for the water acquired from a meter paid for by the damage. department. Is this allowed? What if they were to take the water from one of our hydrants, which we already allow them to use to fill and clean their trucks? I suspect the department is looking for a new source of revenue. Systems should also consider the risk fire trucks pose as a source of cross contamination of their water systems. Let’s say a truck filled one day at a stock pond, river or ditch, and then filled at your hydrant the next day. Systems have been known

A: As it relates to the meter paid for by the to fail their bacti sample tests in this way. Water VFD, both the TRWA Sample Tariff and the Service systems are responsible for ensuring that all crossApplication and Agreement, which all customers connections are eliminated instantly, so they should are supposed to sign, include prohibitions on educate VFD staff to make sure they are trained on the resale of water. Specifically, these provisions how to protect the system’s hydrants and valves. state that water is for the sole use of the member They should also make sure that some type of or customer (in this case the VFD), and that the backflow prevention assembly is installed to keep sharing, reselling or submetering any water in the truck’s tank from of water to any other person, "If the VFD were to entering the utility’s distribution dwelling, business or property is prohibited. Thus, if the VFD were to resell water from its meter to individuals to fill their pools, it would likely be in violation of your WSC’s rules. resell water from its meter to individuals to fill their pools, it would likely be in violation of your system while it is being filled. Q: We were recently written up by TCEQ for storing our chlorine equipment and caustic soda feed equipment in the same building. While Taking water from one of your hydrants for this purpose is also WSC's rules." it seems logical that these should be separated, I couldn’t problematic. It is important to find the specific rule that remember that all members of your system bear the requires that. Also, how would you suggest we cost of acquiring, treating and producing the water go about fixing the situation in the future? the VFD would be taking to fill just a few individuals’ pools. In other words, every customer on the system who pays a base rate would be subsidizing the cost of that treated water for just the few residences, some of which might not even be members of the system who shared in bearing all the costs associated with that water. On the surface, this seems innocent enough, but it benefits the VFD at the expense of the rest of your system’s members. A: Rule 290.42(e) covers all aspects of disinfection and states that systems that use chlorine gas must ensure the risks associated with it are limited in certain ways. Specific to your question, systems must house gas chlorination equipment and chlorine cylinders in a separate building or room with impervious walls or partitions that separate all mechanical and electrical equipment from the chlorine facilities. Housing must be located above

There are other potential downsides of allowing ground level as an additional safety measure, access to the water systems’ hydrants for non-fire and systems may install equipment and cylinders related uses. First is the question of who bears the outside of buildings when protected from adverse cost of wear and tear on the fire hydrant. Systems weather conditions and vandalism. may have to contend with expensive maintenance costs for hydrants used to fill fire trucks for pools Therefore, if you currently have only one storage

building or room, you might consider using it to house and store the caustic soda feed equipment and place the chlorine outside. Just be sure that the chlorine cylinders are securely fastened so they can’t be turned over on accident or pulled lose from the chlorine injection system piping.

Q: I am aware of the rule that requires meters to be located on the property being served. My question is, how do we verify the boundaries of properties for this purpose? We have been mostly going by the word of individual landowners, which has recently resulted in us finding out that some of our meters were not correctly located.

A: This is one of those situations where a little extra effort by the system up front can save them substantial headaches and costs down the road. Throughout my time at TRWA, I have seen too many systems that have allowed customers to dictate where they wanted their meters to be set. This can lead to lawsuits and fights between neighbors and family members, and often the utility ends up bearing the brunt of these clashes. In many cases, system staff were simply too timid to enforce their own policies relating to meter locations if a customer raised their voice, said they would sue the system, or used an intimidating attitude.

Systems are not required to do expensive title searches, but they should require applicants for service to provide a legal deed or ownership proof showing that the person applying for water or sewer service owns that tract of land. After getting this proof of ownership, the system should at least check the county’s tax rolls and property tax maps to see whose name is listed for that property. While this may have been more of an undertaking many years ago, most counties have modernized and this research can now generally be done from the system’s office.

Is this a fool-proof verification? Not all the time, but it is usually pretty accurate unless another deed or court decree has been issued since the county’s records were last updated. You could also require the applicant to provide this information as part of the application process. Most importantly, you should enforce these policies and refuse to set a meter until you are satisfied that the applicant does, in fact, own the property on which the meter will

Continued on page 20

be placed. Until they can do that, they don’t get a meter.

This is a hard line for systems to take, but otherwise you are operating on an honor system in which the applicant has little incentive to uphold his or her end of the bargain. In the event that the placement ends up being wrong, the PUC would likely side with the owner in a dispute about relocation costs because they would see it as the utility shirking its responsibility to exercise due diligence when it set the meter in the wrong location in the first place.

we can set an appropriate nonstandard service investigation fee for those types of requests. What would be an appropriate fee, and how do we go about setting that in our tariff?

A: Before establishing the amount of the fee, I think it is important to understand the types of costs the fee is meant to cover. In the Sample Tariff, we state that the nonstandard service investigation fee is for the purposes of paying initial administrative, legal and engineering fees associated with the investigation of the corporation’s ability to delver the desired services to the applicant.

To establish an initial nonstandard service investigation fee, the system would need to rely strongly on their engineer and attorney, as well as any administrative staff in determining the expenses that will relate to the application. Sometimes the system will need an attorney’s expertise to determine the price of amending the utility’s CCN, negotiating water rights or a purchase water contract, or negotiating a contract for the purchase of property to build a remote storage tank or well to service the project costs based on the on-site and off-site improvements that will be necessary to provide the level and manner of service being requested by the applicant. Many engineers have drawn up plans or completed similar calculations for other applicants or systems and may have developed a simple formula they use for establishing the fee.

This is why the Sample Tariff leaves the blank in there for your system or your system’s engineer to either insert a standard “estimated fee” or just takes

If you have a technical question you would like answered, please e-mail larry.bell@trwa.org.

Q: The TRWA Sample Tariff has a place where

development. If you are interested in having us as Some systems contact their engineer to get a rough estimate for the your partner, feel free to contact one of our department representatives below NEW TANKS — Rick DiZinno (270) 826-9000 ext. 2601 costs of reviewing and EXISTING TANKS — Patrick Heltsley calculating the proposed (270) 826-9000 ext. 4601 each application on a case-by-case basis.

In-Service Cleaning

Code Updates