It is a schedule, not a cliff.
The hard part is not complying. It is knowing what applies to you. The deadline is to enroll, not to finish, and wineries that transition get a five year compliance schedule to do the work.
The Statewide Winery Order
One order, adopted in 2021, covering winery process water discharged to land across California. How it reaches you depends on where you are, because some counties run their own program underneath it and some do not.
Where this came from, why Napa is only feeling it now, and whether it is actually enforceable
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Estimate your tier.
The Order sorts wineries into five categories by annual process water flow. This walks you to the likely one. If you do not know a number, say so. The categories are wide, so an approximate answer usually still lands in the right place.
Annual facility process water design flow, measured before treatment.
| Category | Gallons per year |
|---|---|
| Exempt | Under 10,000 |
| Tier 1 | 10,000 to 30,000 |
| Tier 2 | 30,001 to 300,000 |
| Tier 3 | 300,001 to 1,000,000 |
| Tier 4 | 1,000,001 to 15,000,000 |
| Individual | Over 15,000,000 |
Table 1, Order WQ 2021-0002-DWQ, page 9.
Where does your winery process water go?
Do you have metered process water flow?
Everything below rests on how much process water you use per gallon of wine. We assume 5.5 to 1. If you have measured yours, put it in and the estimate becomes your arithmetic rather than ours.
The regulatory feed
Actions, deadlines and guidance affecting California winery process water, with the citation attached and an honest note wherever the record does not agree with itself.
A page cannot tell you what your file says.
Everything above is the general shape of the rule. What actually determines your position is your permit of record, your reported volumes, and whether anything at your facility has changed since it was issued. That is a document review, and it is the part worth getting right before a deadline rather than after one.
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