How one lawsuit embodies local-state conflict in California water conservation
A lawsuit filed by a group of local agencies in late 2025 that challenges state water regulations serves as an example of the regulatory conflict that plays out in California.
The dispute centers around the state’s determination of each local agencies’ outdoor water budget, basing it on how much land is irrigated rather than how much land could be irrigated. The lawsuit reflects a conflict that is central to the tension between state regulations and local water agencies.
In the ongoing Bay‑Delta debate, many water agencies favor the voluntary agreement pathway, which they see as giving them more flexibility in how they meet state‑set flow and habitat goals. That option is a selling point for local districts, but the presence of a regulatory backstop — or “unimpaired flow rules,” which set limits on water diversions from rivers — that could take effect if agreements fall apart, remains a major concern for them.
While earlier phases of the Bay-Delta plan have already been litigated, much of the recent focus has been on lengthy negotiations and revisions to the plan, rather than on launching new courtroom battles. For now, the divide is more evident in the lawsuit challenging the State Water Resources Control Board’s water conservation regulations.
When disagreement turns into litigation
In 2018, California lawmakers changed how urban water use is regulated statewide by passing Senate Bill 606 and Assembly Bill 1668, expanding on former Gov. Jerry Brown’s “Making Water Conservation a California Way of Life” initiative as a post‑drought policy push.
Previously, conservation enforcement largely kicked in during severe droughts, relying on temporary restrictions. The new law instead set up an ongoing system that requires city and suburban water providers to stay within state limits regardless of whether California is in a drought.
That framework gave regulators wide discretion to write the details of how the system would work. When the board finalized the “Making Conservation a California Way of Life regulation” in 2024, water conservation for urban suppliers shifted from a largely temporary drought response to a standing requirement. Many environmental advocates were in favor of the approach, while urging the state to go further, arguing the final rules were weaker than what California’s climate risks demanded.
“For the first time, the State could require urban water agencies to meet customized conservation objectives that are based on water efficiency standards and that also account for differences in local climate and economic conditions,” a blog post by an environmental nonprofit Mono Lake Committee said in Feb., 2024.
The committee argued the new regulation “should save 440,000 acre-feet over the next decade — enough water to meet the needs of 1.5 million households,” pointing to Los Angeles, where per-capita water use has fallen significantly thanks to strong conservation efforts even as the city has grown.
Under the new regulation, some water agencies were able to meet the standards without cutting water use, while others faced large, mandatory reductions. As a result, a group of local water agencies, including San Juan Water District, objected to how the law had been applied and took the case to the court.
The crux of the issue lay in how the state interpreted the words “irrigable lands,” a legal phrase that water agencies say should cover all property that could reasonably be landscaped, not just the portions that already have sprinklers running.
Irrigable areas are places that can be watered, including land that may not be irrigated at a given time. In the lawsuit filed in December, water agencies argued the law told the state water board to base water limits on all the land where people could have landscaping. Instead, they asserted, the board used only the land that is watered right now, which makes the water budget smaller and the required cuts bigger in some places.
“Assigning zero water to some irrigable lands is not applying a ‘standard’ within any reasonable interpretation of that term. A standard implies a measure, criterion, or allowable level of use,” the December litigation read, referring to the board’s outdoor residential water-use efficiency rules.
“Zero allowance is not a standard — it is a prohibition that prevents any use whatsoever.”
Throughout the rulemaking process, San Juan Water District repeatedly raised the same concern that 2018 state law requires the outdoor standard to apply to those areas that could be irrigated.
But “the Water Board consistently failed to allow for that,” said Paul Helliker, a former general manager of the district, contending that the board misleadingly defined “irrigable lands” as only areas already being watered, leading to his current standing that the board “has ignored the law.”
The agencies want a judge to say the state misread the 2018 law and to roll back conservation rules tied to how irrigable land is defined, while conservationists are pressing in the opposite direction, urging regulators to lock in strong, statewide efficiency standards amid climate change.
Jim Peifer, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Water Authority, said he views the conservation regulation case as an example of a policy that “makes water less affordable,” as he used analyses by the Legislative Analyst’s Office and the Public Policy Institute of California, which warned the rules could be costly and difficult to implement.
“Using or overusing their authority is often in the eye of the beholder, and it’s a complicated relationship that we have with them,” Peifer said.
Working through competing priorities
A long-awaited Bay-Delta plan proposal has met resistance from both water agencies and environmental advocates, with water agencies seeking more flexibility in meeting state rules and environmentalists calling for an “absolute minimum” to support salmon recovery.
The state water regulators and regional water agencies’ disagreements over water management are common, and they are usually worked through regulatory revisions. For the current phase of the Bay‑Delta plan, Jim Peifer, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Water Authority, has noted that he does not view the state water board as having overstepped its authority in that process.
“It’s not unusual for regulators and regulated to have a complicated relationship,” said Peifer, adding that the regional water agencies focus on three goals — which is “serving water that is always available, of high quality, and is affordable.”
“At times Water Board develops regulations that focus on one of those things and disrupts the balance making it harder for agencies to meet their mission.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 1:18 PM.
