The City Council on Tuesday adopted a long-term water blueprint that officials say ensures the city will have enough water to meet demand through 2045, even under sustained drought, while assuring residents the plan carries no immediate cost or rate increase.
The 2025 Urban Water Management Plan and an accompanying Water Shortage Contingency Plan won unanimous approval at the council's June 23 meeting. California requires every urban supplier that provides more than 3,000 acre-feet of water a year, or serves at least 3,000 connections, to update the plan every five years. The city must submit both documents to the state Department of Water Resources by July 1.
Mayor Caroline Torosis paused the proceedings to underscore what the vote did — and did not — do.
"I just want to be clear that this, what we're adopting today, is a planning document, and that it doesn't have any immediate financial impact, nor is it any sort of rate adjustment," Torosis said.
The plan, presented by Civil Engineering Associate Dinaz Kureishy of the Water Resources Division, projects water use in five-year increments through 2045, building in a 5% allowance for distribution losses. Drawing on data from 2015 through 2025, Kureishy said the city's conservation efforts had driven down overall water use even as the population, which dipped slightly between 2021 and 2022, has begun trending upward again.
"The overall trend in our water usage is decreasing, which is showing that our conservation programs have been very successful," she told the council.
Much of the discussion centered on a notable shift in where Santa Monica's water came from over the past five years. The city draws on two main sources: local groundwater from its Charnock, Arcadia and Olympic well fields, and imported water from the Metropolitan Water District, which originates from the Colorado River or the State Water Project.
Council member Natalya Zernitskaya noted that from 2015 to 2020, local groundwater supplied about 65% of the city's water and the Metropolitan Water District about 35%, with recycled water making up roughly 1%. From 2021 to 2025, those proportions flipped, with imported water climbing to 67% and local groundwater falling to 33%.
Kureishy attributed the change to a major construction project at the Arcadia Water Treatment Plant, which she described as "the heart of the drinking water for the city." During the work, the city could not produce local groundwater and leaned more heavily on imported supplies. Because of the disruption, the plan's reliability analysis used an assessment period of 2010 through 2020 rather than more recent years.
With the Arcadia plant now back online, officials expect the balance to tip back toward local groundwater, though Kureishy said the change would not appear in this format until the next plan, five years from now.
The plan tests the city's supplies against three conditions: a normal year, a single dry year and a span of multiple dry years. For imported water, the city used a conservative figure of 7,406 acre-feet a year, its Tier 1 allocation from the Metropolitan Water District, without counting additional tiers. Even when supplies fall short of average, Kureishy said, the modeling shows the city can still meet projected demand in every scenario.
The contingency plan, which lays out a six-stage framework for responding to shortages, saw no major changes from the version adopted in 2020. The city remains in a stage-two posture that Kureishy described as "business as usual," meaning customers are not being asked to cut back.
Responding to a question from council member Lana Negrete about aging local infrastructure, Kureishy said all of the city's reservoirs are undergoing a rehabilitation project, with design and construction wrapping up and work set to begin next year. The effort will eventually cover every reservoir, starting with the Mount Olivet and San Vicente sites before moving to Riviera and others.
The council adopted a finding that the plan is statutorily exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act under state Water Code provisions, which exempt the preparation and adoption of such plans. Council member Ellis Raskin moved to approve the item and Negrete seconded; it passed on a unanimous roll-call vote.
The plan was prepared under Christopher Dishlip, director of public works. Staff presented findings to the Commission on Sustainability, Environmental Justice and the Environment on May 18, and notified neighboring agencies, including the Metropolitan Water District, Culver City, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Beverly Hills and Los Angeles County, of the plan's preparation in April.
Staff said they would return to the council if any specific budget actions become necessary in the future.