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Each day, a vast majority of homes, schools and businesses in California receive a safe and reliable water supply delivered by a responsible public water provider. But some who live in rural, low-income communities experience unreliable service or a water supply that fails to meet state and federal standards for public health. Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) fully recognizes the challenges disadvantaged communities face in obtaining access to clean, safe drinking water. In 2016, EMWD and neighboring public agencies completed a years-long process to consolidate a failing private water system in Riverside County.

The San Diego County Water Authority, tired of paying a middle man to deliver water from hundreds of miles away, is starting to cast out for ideas once written off as laughable. One board member has even suggested San Diego may consider building a pipeline of its own to the Colorado River. The pipeline would give the Water Authority a chance to accomplish a long-held goal: breaking a monopoly held by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the region’s largest water supplier and the owner of the only physical connection San Diego has to the Colorado River.

The San Diego County Water Authority and its 24 member agencies have an unyielding commitment to providing a safe and reliable water supply for 3.3 million people at a reasonable cost. For the San Diego region, that results in a constant, drought-resilient supply of water that meets rigorous state and federal quality standards. It’s not like that everywhere in California. Some rural, low-income communities face a different reality: their drinking water contains elevated levels of contaminants such as nitrates and arsenic. This public health issue and social justice challenge demands focused leadership by state officials to solve.

Money is no object when you’re spending somebody else’s. If those words haven’t yet replaced “Eureka” as the official state motto of California, they soon will. The Legislature is back in session. The chairs were barely warm when lawmakers advanced yet another sneak attack on property owners. This time it’s a gut-and-amend bill to allow the Los Angeles County Flood Control District to levy special taxes for stormwater management projects.

When a therapy dog refused to drink at a San Diego grade school, it was the first clue that something was wrong with the water. Tests revealed why the pup turned up its nose — the presence of polyvinyl chloride, the polymer in PVC pipes that degrade over time. But further analysis found something else that had gone undetected by the dog, the teachers and students of the San Diego Cooperative Charter School, and the school district: elevated levels of lead.