Submeters in the Balance

A little more than a year into California’s mandate of submetering on all new apartments, water conservation continues to be a hot topic. Effective Jan. 1, 2018, California SB-7 took effect and dashed the future of master metering. All new apartments are now required to meter individual consumption and provide billing on each unit. The law is part of an ongoing effort to monitor usage in a state that has been battling drought off and on for nearly a decade. No official data has been released on the impact of submetering on multifamily, and its effectiveness may have been clouded by another year of taxation on water usage resulting from the drought. Water consumption changes While it had no specific apartment data, the California State Water Resources Control Board said that, of 88 percent of suppliers reporting, more than 291 billion gallons were saved in 2018 compared to the consumption in the pre-drought benchmark year of 2013. In December 2018, statewide potable water savings reached 18.4 percent compared to December 2013 potable water production for the 360 suppliers reporting. But daily residential use (including indoor and outdoor) in 2018 was an average of 91 gallons per capita, slightly above 2017 usage. Overall consumption spiked in Southern California early in the year, and the state’s total reservoir storage was down compared to the end of 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. According to the USGS, California uses more water than any other state. Each Californian uses 181 gallons of water per day. Last year lawmakers tightened the spigots even more, some of it aimed at multifamily. In January, a code change from water conservation measure Senate Bill 407 went into effect to enforce the use of water-efficient plumbing fixtures—toilets, faucets, showerheads. If original fixtures are in place for apartments built before 1993, operators could face big fines. By summer...