Water and Sewer Allocation Program

Description

On September 15, 1986, the City of Gilroy enacted ordinance 86-16 and ordinance 86-17, which created the first ordinances “pertaining to water and sewer overuse penalties” to quantify, monitor, and limit water and sewer use on commercial and industrial property within the City of Gilroy. Starting in 1986, the City began to allocate and monitor commercial/industrial water and sewer usage.

The ordinances were enacted primarily to protect the City’s wastewater treatment plant, water wells’ and reservoirs’, and water and sewer system’s capacity from overuse and to avoid unnecessary and costly capital capacity expansion and to provide funding for capital capacity expansion when needed.

On January 26, 2009, ordinances 2009-01 and 2009-02 were approved which updated and amended the original 86-16 and 86-17 ordinances. These new ordinances describe exactly how the daily allocation is calculated, the requirements of applicants for new allocations, and how existing use is “grandfathered”. Monitoring and overuse penalties are clearly defined describing exactly what meters and rates are used to determine overuse and how overuse penalties are calculated and noticed. Also, the City’s option to terminate water and sewer service for consistent overuse, to rescind consistently underused allocations (refunding the value of the rescinded allocation only at the rate previously paid for by the owner) is established. Since 1986 the water and sewer allocation program has focused on allocating water and sewer usage for new development through standard city allocation agreements and allocations by operation of the ordinance for existing usage without quantifying the allocation.

The City is developing a program to monitor both water and sewer allocations through water meter readings. Sewer allocations may also be monitored by other methods and/or sewer use calculations, if requested by the owner and approved by the City.

Currently in development is an automated tracking and monitoring system for water and sewer that will compile monthly usage from the meters, send notices of overuse, and send overuse bills to parcels that have gone over their allocation or are in a penalty stage, for each commercial/ industrial parcel in the City.

City Municipal Code Chapter 19, Article VIII – Daily Sewer Allocation and Overuse Penalties.

City Municipal Code Chapter 27, Article IV – Daily Water Allocation and Overuse Penalties.

Additional information on City’s Water System.

Water Conservation Resources
http://www.valleywater.org/programs/waterconservation.aspx
http://www.valleywater.org/programs/FreeConservationItems.aspx
http://www.h2ouse.org/