Sonoma City Council adopts 2025 Urban Water Management Plan with direction to incorporate climate-action recommendations

The Sonoma City Council on June 17 unanimously adopted the city's 2025 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) and accompanying Water Shortage Contingency Plan, directing staff and the consultant to incorporate recommendations from the Climate Action Commission that the council had already approved and to fold in additional public comments where compatible with Department of Water Resources (DWR) guidelines.

The UWMP, prepared by consultant EKI and presented by Dawn of EKI, updates the city's five-year water planning documents and is a prerequisite for state loans and grants. Dawn said the plan documents historical supplies and demands, projects water needs through 2050 under normal, single dry and multiple dry years, and summarizes conservation programs and drought response measures. "Currently your demand is about 2,000 acre-feet as of 2025, and it's projected to increase just slightly up to about 2,160 acre-feet by 2050," she said.

The plan shows Sonoma City obtains about 90% of its supply from Sonoma Water, with the remainder from groundwater and a small amount of recycled water. EKI's analysis concluded the city has sufficient supplies in normal and modeled dry-year scenarios based on the Sonoma Water modeling data available to the consultant.

Council members pressed consultants and staff on diversifying supplies. One council member asked why the plan did not include quantified stormwater-capture or expanded recycled-water projects. Dawn replied that such measures are potential supply sources but were not quantified for this UWMP because data and feasibility analyses were not available; she said they can be studied and considered in future updates or separate feasibility studies. The city clerk and staff also explained the adoption timing was constrained by the DWR July 1 filing deadline.

Public commenters raised process and content concerns. Tom Conlon, who submitted written comments in advance, said the public hearing and comment period felt compressed and asked for appendices and stronger links to the city's climate-action measures. "We need contingency plans," Conlon said, praising the new detail in the contingency steps but urging better alignment with climate strategies. Staff and EKI responded that the draft meets DWR guidelines, that many additional details are in appendices or may be incorporated, and that the tight schedule reflected public-notice timing and the state deadline.

Faced with the practical need to file by July 1, the council chose a compromise approach: adopt the UWMP and Water Shortage Contingency Plan at the meeting but direct the city manager to work with the consultant to incorporate the Climate Action Commission's approved water-related actions and to add other public-hearing comments that enhance the plan and do not conflict with DWR requirements. The motion passed by unanimous roll call.

What happens next: staff will finalize the final UWMP for submission to DWR by the July 1 deadline, incorporating the directed edits where feasible, and will return to council with any substantive changes that require policy action. Council members also suggested directing staff to pursue additional feasibility work on recycled water, stormwater capture, and groundwater options as part of the city's longer-term planning and annual work program.