Notwithstanding Sections 526 and 527, any water purveyor that becomes an urban water supplier on or after January 1, 2005, shall do both the following:
- (a) Install water meters on all municipal and industrial service connections located within its service area within 10 years of meeting the definition of urban water supplier.
(b)
- (1) Charge each customer for which a water meter has been installed, based on the actual volume of water delivered, as measured by the water meter, within five years of meeting the definition of urban water supplier.
- (2) Notwithstanding paragraph (1), in order to provide customers with experience in volume-based water service charges, an urban water supplier that is subject to this subdivision may delay, for one annual seasonal cycle of water use, the use of meter-based charges for service connections that are being converted from nonvolume-based billing to volume-based billing.
- (c) For the purposes of this article, an “urban water supplier” has the same meaning as that set forth in Section 10617.