An Important Update on Water Shutoff Restrictions!

CONTINUING IMPACT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER PROHIBITING TERMINATION OF WATER SERVICE FOR NON-PAYMENT

By James Ciampa, Lagerlof LLP

On April 2, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Newsom issued Executive Order N-42-20, which prohibited water systems in California from terminating water service for non-payment of bills. That Executive Order does not contain an expiration date. Under applicable law, the Executive Order will remain valid and in effect until such time as the COVID-19 State of Emergency is lifted, which will occur either by a proclamation of the governor or adoption of a resolution by both the State Assembly and State Senate. Under current circumstances in California, it is not likely that State of Emergency will be lifted for the foreseeable future (probably not until early 2021 at the soonest).

Because Executive Order N-42-20 remains in effect, the service termination procedures required under SB 998 (the Water Shutoff Protection Act) , which took effect on February 1, 2020 for systems with 3,000 or more service connections and on April 1, 2020 for systems with fewer than 3,000 connections, do not apply. An article summarizing SB 998’s requirements, which CRWA’s attorney prepared last year for CRWA’s California Water Journal, is attached here . However, as stated above, the procedures under SB 998 are moot until Executive Order N-42-20 is withdrawn or otherwise cancelled.

Thus, water systems remain prohibited, for the foreseeable future, from terminating a customer’s water service for non-payment. Note that the Executive Order does not prohibit imposition of late fees, but there are certainly customer relations issues that arise from charging such fees.