Introduction The Water Conservation Act of 1991 established a requirement that water providers develop, adopt, make publicly available, and implement a plan to encourage its customers to use water more efficiently. In 1995 Centennial Water and Sanitation District (District) developed a water management plan to comply with the 1991 Act’s requirements. In 2004 the State of Colorado revised the minimum planning requirements established in 1991 under the new Water Conservation Act of 2004. To comply with the new requirements, the District developed a new Water Conservation Plan that was submitted and approved by the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s (CWCB) Office of Water Conservation and Drought Planning in 2009. The 2004 law requires that water conservation plans be updated and submitted to the CWCB every seven years. This new plan, now called the Water Efficiency Plan, is intended to meet the current required elements for water efficiency planning and satisfy the requirement of a seven-year update to the District’s plan in accordance with the Water Conservation Act of 2004. There are additional reasons to update the District’s water efficiency plan, which include, but are not limited to:
Improve public awareness of the need to conserve and use water more efficiently Improve public knowledge of water efficiency opportunities and methods Improve the District’s understanding of water use trends Sustain and improve upon past water savings, behavior, and attitudes Diminish the need to acquire additional renewable water supplies, thereby reducing associated costs and environmental impacts Reduce future District operating costs
This plan follows the format of the Municipal Water Efficiency Plan Guidance Document introduced by the CWCB in July 2012, and describes activities to reduce the overall water demand of the District. The plan also includes an overview of the District’s water supply system, a profile of water demands and demand management, a discussion of the role that water efficiency plays in water supply planning, a delineation of the District’s water efficiency goals, a description of water efficiency activities, and a description of how the plan will be implemented and monitored over the course of the seven-year planning period. The plan provides a path for making sound decisions about the water efficiency activities that will be funded by the District. The water efficiency activities described in this plan may evolve as necessary to ensure that goals and objectives are met. The water efficiency plan does not describe in detail how each water efficiency activity will be implemented. Those details will be determined as implementation of each activity or group of activities takes place.
1
