OPINION: Proposed Drinking Water Tax Is Driving Us Not To Drink

A plan to hit Californians with a first-of-its-kind statewide tax on drinking water is on ice, for now. The proposed tax would cost most Californians about $1 per month on their residential water bills. Businesses would pay $4 to $10 per month. Although California voters just approved another $4 billion in bonds including funds for clean water, and the November ballot will ask voters to approve about $8 billion more, Gov. Jerry Brown says it wasn’t enough. He pushed for the  tap-water tax to raise another $140 million per year to clean up contaminated drinking water for 360,000 rural Californians, mostly in the San Joaquin Valley.