SAWS wants to crack down on water wasters, rule breakers

SAWS already imposes restrictions on irrigation for residential and commercial water users during times of drought. The utility currently must penalize violators through a citation process in municipal court, similar to traffic tickets. But there are loopholes that exempt some customers from enforcement, and for large commercial customers the existing fine system has little impact, said Karen Guz, SAWS vice president for conservation. 

On Tuesday, Guz presented the SAWS Board of Trustees with a proposed set of changes to address those and other issues.

The plan proposes:

• Making drought restrictions apply to all SAWS users
• Changing the fee structure for violations
• Charging the highest users more under Stage 3 drought restrictions, and changing the triggers for that stage
• Clarifying irrigation system regulations to require a SAWS check on systems

As Texas and Bexar County remain in a drought and water levels in the Edwards Aquifer have fallen, SAWS water usage has increased. The utility’s gallons per capita per day, a metric that measures how much water is used daily, has climbed during the drought. In 2022, it was 9 percent higher than expected under Stage 2 restrictions, Guz said, and the increase from 2021 to 2022 was the largest in the past decade. The utility has issued more than 4,000 citations this year for water use violations. Last year, SAWS issued more than 7,000 citations and spent more than $500,000 on enforcement.

Volatility, and higher usage during times of drought, are expensive for the utility, because if SAWS can’t moderate demand when water levels are lower, it needs to spend more money to acquire more water at times when water is least available.

READ MORE: Edwards Aquifer Authority tightens drought restrictions to Stage 4

Most SAWS customers comply with drought rules, Guz said. At Stage 2, which has been in place for more than a year, that means watering only once per week, except for hand-watering. But 5 percent to 9 percent of single-family homes are watering more than that, according to electronic meters, she said. The utility has more than 500,000 residential customers and of those, the top 6 percent used 21 percent of water in 2022, while the bottom 52 percent of customers used less than one-quarter. 

There are areas of extreme usage, which requires pushing more water through pipes and taxing the infrastructure. And new homes with automatic irrigation systems also use more water, especially if those systems aren’t installed correctly. 

Currently, SAWS has two options under San Antonio city code: seeking criminal penalties with a citation and fine, which starts at a minimum of $50 for a first-time violation, or pursuing civil penalties by filing suit. That’s not an efficient option for the utility, so they rely on criminal penalties, which requires violators to go through the municipal court system. That can take months, Guz said, and it creates stress for customers. 

The enforcement works for most residential customers. After a citation is issued, usage drops by about 3,000 gallons per month at single family homes, but that’s not the case for commercial irrigation customers.

Guz attributed that in part to the costs, which haven’t been changed in more than two decades. Large businesses who are paying thousands of dollars to water their lawns don’t flinch at a $100 fine, she said. While the city ordinance allows for escalating fees for repeat violations, the current process often allows customers to choose not to contest the citation, pay the fine and move forward without a conviction, which can prevent repeat violators from seeing increasing fines. 

READ MORE: Water restrictions in San Antonio: How SAWS and the Edwards Aquifer do (and don’t) work together

To address that, Guz proposed creating an internal system for enforcement, in which violators would instead be charged a fee or rate on their bill. SAWS would create an internal dispute resolution process for people to challenge the fine if they’re identified as violating. The city would need to authorize that approach.

Guz said it’s too early to speculate on what the fees would be, because they would need to be based on recovering the costs of enforcement and high usage. But she said she’d like to consider increasing fines in deeper stages of drought, because that situation is more urgent, and raising fines for repeat violators, because dealing with them costs the utility more money. Potential changes could also include adjusting fees for large commercial irrigation users, with a higher fee for those using more than 1 million gallons of water per year.

SAWS would put the drought restrictions and penalties in its utility service regulations, the rules SAWS customers must follow. In addition to streamlining the process, that would also ensure the rules and penalties are applied equally to all customers. 

Under the current system, SAWS can’t penalize customers who violate the rules but don’t live in San Antonio or its extraterritorial jurisdiction. The utility provides services in other incorporated cities, such as Helotes and Terrell Hills, and in areas outside the city’s ETJ, but those customers can’t be cited and taken to San Antonio municipal court. Moving the restrictions into the utility’s regulations and the enforcement process within SAWS would address that loophole. 

Single-family residential customers who violate restrictions for the first time could also be allowed to take a water education class in lieu of a fine, focusing on education over punishment. That’s not currently an option with the existing court process. 

READ MORE: Where does SAWS get its water?

In addition to tying fee amounts to drought stages, Guz also asked the board to consider changing the triggers for going into Stage 3 restrictions. 

While Stage 1 and Stage 2 are directly tied to Edwards Aquifer levels, Stage 3 restrictions — when watering is limited to every other week  —  have a higher bar. The city only implements Stage 3 on SAWS’ recommendation when there’s a risk of supply not meeting demand. She proposed considering new Stage 3 rules with an excess use surcharge on top discretionary users, and said with different restrictions, a different and clearer trigger could be used instead. That wouldn’t affect 90 percent of customers, she said, but it would make it more expensive and discourage the people using the most water above a certain level. 

Because irrigation systems can also be large users and wasters of water, SAWS also wants to increase oversight of irrigation systems by requiring a SAWS inspection on new systems and creating consequences in its regulations for customers that don’t meet standards. Improperly installed systems can use up to 20 percent more water per year, Guz said. While Texas has rigorous irrigation standards, this change would help SAWS ensure they’re being followed and prevent waste, she said. 

If the SAWS board and the city are willing to move forward on the proposed changes, they wouldn’t be in place for several months. After presenting to the board Tuesday, Guz said next steps will include soliciting community input and having discussions with the city.  

She proposed a timeline in which the SAWS board would vote on the changes in December and an ordinance would go before the City Council in early 2024, with a goal of having new regulations in place by next spring.

Trustees were largely supportive of moving forward with the discussion, though some questioned if the proposal was to use data from electronic meters, after telling customers that they wouldn’t be used for policing water use. 

Guz said the utility “has no intention” of assessing consequences based on meters, and said SAWS has to actually see the violation. But the meters can be used for alerting customers when their usage could indicate a problem, she said. 

Trustee Marilu Reyna asked if residential customers, who typically decrease their use after a citation, would have the same response to a fee on their bill. Guz said SAWS would use multiple ways to contact customers, including emails, phone numbers and snail mail, to ensure that the information is effectively communicated. 

Mayor Ron Nirenberg said he supports moving forward with those conversations, but said the city also needs to be working more with SAWS on drought management and suggested widening the discussion. “A lot of the onus is going to be on the city,” he said.

He said SAWS board members and staff should speak with the city about code changes that could be improved, as well. Nirenberg called it “incongruent” that there is limited aquifer capacity, but new developments are putting down turf and irrigation systems that require water.

“Recommendations that the SAWS staff and board, as experts in this area, can make to the City Council, would be very welcome from my standpoint,” he said.