We are learning some new information about the water shortage emergency in Cambria.
The Cambria Community Services District has released some new information about what this means for residents.
On July 15, the CCSD board of directors voted unanimously to declare a stage 4 water shortage emergency as part of a six-stage water shortage contingency plan.
This means an overall reduction of up to 40% from current levels.
Each full-time resident has an allocation of three units per month or six units per billing period.
A unit is 748 gallons, so this equates to a little over 2,200 gallons a month or more than 4,400 gallons per billing period for each resident.
A household of two is allocated double that and so on based on the number of residents in a household.
The stage 4 allocations are not mandatory. They are just guidelines at this point.
Commercial use is allocated the average monthly water use in 2019 but each commercial customer should contact the CCSD to verify their allocation and what this means for them.
Moving to stage 5 would trigger the operation of the water reclamation facility and mandatory caps on water use backed by penalties for exceeding water use allocations.
For permanent residents, the allocation would go down to two units per month or four units in a billing period so roughly 1,400 gallons a month or more than 2,900 per billing period.
Water use that exceeds the maximum water use allocation by less than 25% would be subject to a 500% penalty surcharge on usage above the customer's monthly unit allocation.
Water use that exceeds the maximum water use allocation by more than 25% would be subject to a 1000% penalty surcharge on usage above the customer's monthly unit allocation.
