Recommendations: Actions for Normal and Drought Conditions

In order for sufficient planning to occur, we need to address the possibility of drought prior to the onset of drought conditions. While peoples' shower times may be hard to change, the water pressure supplying their shower can. Furthermore, while the watering of lawns will probably never stop, the time that lawns are watered can be changed from daylight to dark. The following recommendations address actions that should be considered to affect behaviors associated with water use.

Regulation

• Require a separate section of the WSSMPs for drought.

  Drought is a long-term emergency that can be prepared for. Other emergencies included in the WSSMPs can occur suddenly or unexpectedly. Therefore, instead of lumping all emergencies together, drought management should be included in the WSSMPs as a separate section. Drought occurs often and water suppliers should be preparing for drought everyday. An adequate WSSMP would reflect this. The separate section should include the following recommendations.

  • All local drought plans should use terminology that is consistent with SGP 724: The Rhode Island Drought Management Plan.

  SGP 724, approved by the Statewide Planning Council in June 2002, sets forth four levels of drought: advisory, watch, warning and emergency. All local WSSMPs should utilize this terminology when discussing drought levels within their system.

  • Water suppliers should be responsible for determining drought levels by measuring the percent capacity of each supply source.

  Different locations in the state receive different amounts of rainfall. While the differences may not be large, they can have significant impacts on the supply sources in those systems. As we have seen, most ground water supplied systems are more sensitive to rainfall than most surface water supplied systems. When drought levels are based on precipitation, a groundwater supplied system may have received more precipitation than a surface water supplied system, be in the same drought phase of a surface water supplied system, yet have less water in its supply. If a statewide drought level determination were issued in this case, the groundwater supplied systems would need more strict water use restrictions than the rest of the state or face more severe impacts from the drought. Instead, each system should be responsible for determining its own level of drought, not based on precipitation, but upon the amount of water in their supply. Each system can then manage its activities and restrictions accordingly.

  • All water suppliers should outline a schedule for restrictions on all outdoor water use triggered by percent capacity or supply.

There is not a distinct line between normal conditions and drought conditions. There should not be. The word "drought" implies emergency and some systems face water shortages every year. Yet, many do not. All decisions about water supply demand should be based on percent capacity, or the amount of water that is available for consumption to the public. These percent capacity levels should be linked to specific restrictions to be placed on water use. Water suppliers should be required to report these restrictions and provide a schedule for said restrictions in their WSSMP. These restrictions shall increase in severity as percent capacity of supply decreases. This requirement should be added into the Rules and Procedures for Water Supply System Management under the Drought category.

Water Resources Board

• The Rhode Island Water Resources Board shall establish a time frame for amending the WSSMPs in order to achieve compliance with the State Drought Plan and other recommendations made here.

  Each WSSMP is to be updated and resubmitted to the Water Resources Board every five years (4). However, droughts and water supply shortages occur more frequently than five years in Rhode Island. In order to most effectively plan for and mitigate drought, these recommended changes to the WSSMPs need to be in place. The faster they are implemented, the better water suppliers will fare against drought and other seasonal water shortages. Therefore, the WRB should acknowledge this and develop a schedule to which water suppliers can adhere in order to utilize the information presented in this thesis and the Rhode Island Drought Management Plan to their advantage. This schedule should include defining drought levels based on percent capacity, defining consumption reduction goals, associating these levels and goals with rates and restrictions, and a methodology for returning back to normal once percent capacity starts to increase.