Charlottesville, VA Water Use Rules: Leak Reporting Duty (2026)

City Code § 31-125(b) lists 'all water leaks must be repaired within three (3) business days after notification by the city' as the first of the drought emergency stage's mandatory restrictions, which only take effect once the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA) certifies in writing that a drought emergency exists; the emergency-stage rules add to or override the drought warning stage rules already in place under subsection (a). If the three-business-day repair window passes without the leak being fixed, the code directs the director of finance to terminate water service to the specific address where the leak is located, and service stays off until the leak is actually repaired, not merely reported as fixed.

The same emergency-stage subsection layers on other mandatory cuts a leaking customer should know about: all outdoor watering is banned outright, athletic-field irrigation is prohibited, businesses and institutions must file a written 20 percent water-reduction plan with the city within 14 days of the emergency notice, and any exemption granted during the earlier drought warning stage stops being valid. A customer who believes a penalty or the service cutoff was wrongly applied can invoke the appeals procedure the city manager is required to establish under § 31-125(e), which weighs the economic hardship of the restriction against the cumulative impact exempting the customer would have on the water supply.

The restrictions, including the leak-repair duty, become enforceable once printed in a newspaper of general circulation or broadcast on a radio or television station serving the city (§ 31-125(c)), and the emergency stage stays in force until the RWSA's Executive Director certifies in writing to the city's Director of Public Works that the emergency no longer exists (§ 31-125(d)).