The City of Santa Cruz Municipal Utilities (SCMU) offers relief to customers who have experienced high bills due to an extraordinary water loss event, such as an underground water line leak. The application for leak forgiveness can be found on the WaterSmart Portal.

If you are applying for leak forgiveness on a dedicated irrigation account, please click here.

Policy

It is the Department's policy to grant a billing adjustment, or leak forgiveness, for extraordinary an non-recurrent plumbing problems. Forgiveness may only be granted one leak forgiveness every two years, and only when the Department finds all of the following conditions to exist:

1) That a request for forgiveness has been made by the account holder no later than 90 days from the date of the utility bill containing the leak or extraordinary use.

2) That the consumption of the leak is greater than the consumption during the same service period the previous year. If a customer has held the account for less than one year, the leak consumption will be compared to either the customer's average monthly consumption or to the historical monthly consumption of the service address

3) That the applicant has provided proof of the repair as required by the leak forgiveness application, and the meter shows no sign of movement after the repair.

4) That the account under review has not already been granted a leak forgiveness in the past 24 months

5) That the leak forgiveness applies to no more than two consecutive service periods

Procedure

1) Account holder completes this Leak Forgiveness Application signifying they have read, understood, and agreed to the policy and procedure, and submits the application to SCMU along with relevant documentation

2) Upon supply of proof of repair and confirmation of no movement on the water meter, SCMU removes all water consumption charges in excess of normal use as described above

3) SCMU contacts the account holder with the adjusted balance, and reminds the account holder that the account is ineligible for further leak forgiveness for the next two years

Click here to be taken to the Leak Forgiveness Form on the WaterSmart portal.