The Oregon Health Authority (OHA), which oversees drinking water systems in the state, requires cities to have an approved Water Management & Conservation Plan (WMCP).  A major component of those plans is a "Water Curtailment Element," which outlines how a drinking water system will respond in the event of major system disruptions such as sudden loss of a major well, long-term regional power outage, etc..  The City of Hermiston has had a "Water Shortage Emergency" section in City Code since 1993.

The OHA approved, and the City Council adopted, a periodic update to Hermiston's WMCP in February, 2020.  A component of that update included some minor changes to our Water Curtailment Element, which would need to be codified by ordinance.  With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, steps to finalize that codification have yet to occur.  The City of Hermiston is not experiencing any issues which would cause staff to recommend initiating a water shortage emergency.  This action is purely house-keeping to have these provisions in place for potential future events.

It is also important to keep in mind, while reviewing this section, that the potential actions outlined are all bad.  Although the temptation may be to think up mitigating factors to alleviate impacts on residents and businesses, we have to remember that if an emergency situation befalls the community where Council will have to consider initiating a water curtailment, then it will be a true emergency situation where there are no 'good' options available.  In the event that a water shortage emergency situation arises, it is also important to keep in mind that declaration of an emergency still must be approved by City Council by resolution.

The good news, however, is that the City of Hermiston, due largely to the fore-sight of previous generations of City Councilors, has a relatively low likelihood of experiencing any true sustained water supply issues.  Unlike many smaller communities, Hermiston has multiple active wells, which pull from multiple different aquifers, and also has surface-water source water delivered from the Columbia River.  All of these redundancies greatly reduce our risk of long-term, sustained water shortages.  Additionally, Hermiston's stored-water capacity, which was recently increased by 20% in 2019, greatly reduces short-term risks of water shortages.

The main over-riding changes being implemented are that the current code only has two emergency-levels, but changes in state law now require three emergency levels.  Below is a summary of the changes at each level.

First-Level Changes:  The only substantive change to this section is to implement OHA's requirement to develop a process for limiting irrigation.  In codifying this requirement, staff specifically called out only irrigation used for grass, in order to avoid potentially destroying residents' food source in the form of backyard vegetable gardens in a first-level curtailment.

The basic limitation created here is that customers would be limited to only irrigating lawn areas on either odd or even days; whichever corresponds to whether their address is an odd or even number.  The obvious flaw with this approach is that customers are likely to increase the amount that they water on days when they can irrigate.  However, in some lower-level emergency situations, where supply is only partially limited, this approach is likely to still yield significant water use reductions by voluntary compliance, and by getting the attention of customers looking to avoid an escalation to a higher emergency level.

I did remove a section on variances from former 52.28(F) because it was duplicative of language found elsewhere in the code.

Second-Level Changes:  In the current code, with only two levels, this is the most restrictive level of water curtailment.  Therefore, I moved the current highly restrictive use allotments down to the third level.  However, OHA requires a daily residential use allotment in the Second Stage, so new second stage levels have been included which use the new system of Irrigation Days, and Non-Irrigation Days

Non-Irrigation Day Cap (200 gallons)-  This amount is equal to the current second-level cap for a 6-person household.  It was felt that simply establishing a flat, across-the-board cap at 200 gallons, would therefore accommodate 95% of households in Hermiston, without having to get in to the tedious, and likely infeasible, process called out in our current code, of requiring all 4,700 residential utility customers to tell the City how many permanent residents live at each address.  Keeping in mind that for the 5% of households with more than 6 people, the code still allows for the City Manager to grant a variance.

Irrigation Day Cap (1,300 gallons)- This second stage emergency is where we are able to address the issue of customers over-watering on days that they can water by actually setting a daily limit.  This figure was arrived at specifically because 16 days in a month at this rate, combined with 15 days at 200 gallons, results in a total monthly water usage of 23,800 gallons.  Compare that to the fact that the median customer in Hermiston uses 32,400 gallons in August (our peak water demand month), and it results in a reduction in water use for the median user of 26.6%.  That is very close to the 25% reduction required by OHA of Commercial users at this stage.  Also, it is important to point out that this amount (23,800 gallons per month) would be no reduction at all for the median customer for 9 months of the year (September thru May).

Irrigation Day Cap Multi-Family (1,100 gallons per Unit)-  This figure was set at 200 gallons lower than single-family homes due to multi-family complexes irrigating less lawn per family than single family homes.

Non-Essential Commercial Use (75% cap)-  This change eliminates references to various types of non-residential uses, and sets all at 75%.  The OHA approval requires this stage to cap all commercial uses at 75%.

Industrial use-  Although no change is being made, I point out that Industrial use will remain unchanged at 85%; because the OHA requirement makes no requirement specific to Industrial use.

Third Level Changes:  This is a new level added.  This level leaves the commercial curtailment levels unchanged from Level 2, and pulls the same residential allotment methodology from the current code down in to this final emergency section.  In the interest of realistic implementation of this code, however, the language from the current code has been simplified to make 115 gallons per customer the default base-line.  That figure in the current code is what would be allowed for a 3-person household.  A 3-person household was used as the baseline because the US Census Bureau estimates that Hermiston has an average of 2.7 people per household.  Therefore, utility billing staff, in a level 3 emergency will only have to search for usages exceeding 115 gallons per day, averaged over a week.  The weekly average was also included to ease administration, and account for water usage spikes seen day to day in a household associated with washing clothing and other activities which may not occur daily.

Variances:  The 2nd section on Variances is being moved to 52.26, at the front of the code section to put it front and center in a water emergency to again remind everyone that in the event of a water shortage emergency, there are no good options, and that some reasonable variances must be granted as they arise.

1. Approve Ordinance 2325

2. Reject Ordinance 2325

3. Recommend changes to Ordinance 2325