A local water conservation project described in Section 11970 is eligible for funding pursuant to this article if, in the determination of the department, the project meets all of the following criteria:
(a)
The project is engineeringly feasible and is capable of producing project water which is economically competitive with alternative new water supply sources.
(b)
The construction and operation of the facilities and programs will not interfere with the requested deliveries of annual entitlement water to any contractor other than the sponsoring contractor.
(c)
The project will not result in any greater annual charges to any contractor, other than the sponsoring contractor, than would have occurred with the construction at the same time of alternative new water supply sources constituting either reservoirs located north of the delta or off-aqueduct storage reservoirs located south or west of the delta designed to deliver water to the California Aqueduct.