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Yuba City council adopts 2025 Urban Water Management Plan, affirms drought contingency and prepares July 1 DWR filing
Summary
The Yuba City City Council unanimously adopted the 2025 Urban Water Management Plan and an accompanying Water Shortage Contingency Plan, projecting population growth to about 87,000 by 2050 and concluding the city has reliable supplies under modeled drought scenarios while requiring annual attention to allocations and storage.
The Yuba City City Council unanimously approved the 2025 Urban Water Management Plan and its Water Shortage Contingency Plan on June 2, 2026, directing staff to submit the adopted documents to the Department of Water Resources by the July 1 deadline.
Christian Elder, the city’s water treatment plant supervisor, and Robert Heather presented the plan, which updates the city’s 20‑year water planning framework through 2050. Elder said the city’s current population sits just under 71,000 and that population projections—developed in consultation with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments—place the city at just under 87,000 by 2050.
Robert Heather outlined the supply portfolio the council relied on in its reliability analysis: State Water Project contract allocations, appropriative rights on the Feather River (License 13855 and Permit 18558), a contract with North Yuba (Northview) Water District, and local groundwater production. Heather said the plan evaluates normal-year and single-dry-year conditions and includes a modeled five-year drought scenario to stress-test supply and demand.
“We have reliable water supplies over the planning period,” Heather said, while noting that allocations from the State Water Project vary annually and must be managed alongside stored and local supplies.
The plan’s demand projections reflect both growth and statewide directives that reduce per-capita water use. Elder said the city incorporated a modest demand-hardening adjustment—roughly a 5% increase for drought‑year stress testing—and separated existing customer use from projected new‑customer demand to reflect different regulatory requirements for new development.
Council discussion was brief; no members requested substantive amendments. Vice Mayor Pasquale moved to adopt the plan and the contingency plan, and Council member Shaw seconded. The motion passed on a unanimous voice vote.
What happens next: staff will finalize the adopted documents and submit them to the California Department of Water Resources. The plan requires annual monitoring of allocations and storage, and the contingency plan provides staged actions—starting with public outreach and escalating to mandatory allocation-based reductions—if a declared shortage materially reduces available supplies.
