The California Legislature is currently considering several proposals to put a $4 billion bond measure on a 2020 ballot for safe drinking water, drought preparation, wildfire prevention, and climate resilience. An $8.9 billion bond initiative has also been filed by environmental advocates.
Many Californians might ask, “Didn’t we already pay for that?”
After years of effort, water agencies across San Diego County and the state have helped to prevent an unprecedented tax on drinking water while ensuring funding for clean water initiatives in disadvantaged communities.
On July 24, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that provides $130 million annually for the next 10 years to clean up polluted drinking water, mainly in the Central and Salinas valleys.
Over the past three years, several proposals in Sacramento have proposed raising that money with a tax on residential water bills. Water industry groups, including the San Diego County Water Authority and several local retail agencies, were among the broad coalition of water, business and civic interests that opposed the tax.
Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins of San Diego took a lead role by working with the governor’s staff and legislators to secure annual funding from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund – an approach passed by the Legislature in early July.
The funding is intended to assist communities in paying for the costs of obtaining access to safe and affordable drinking water, including treated contaminated water.
“The fact that more than a million Californians can’t rely on clean water to drink or bathe in is a moral disgrace,” said Governor Newsom after signing the bill. “This funding is critically important to addressing California’s long-standing safe drinking water issues, and I would like to thank the Legislature for working collaboratively to pass this solution.”
Smaller water districts will also be able to tap the funds to help with their operating costs, and possibly merge with other small districts.
The California State Water Resources Control Board has identified 329 water systems statewide that serve contaminated drinking water or cannot provide reliable water service due to unsound infrastructure or lack of resources. Most of the systems are in rural areas and serve fewer than 10,000 people.
The city wants residents to know its drinking water is more than safe, according to its recently released 2018 Water Quality Report. According to the report, the city didn’t detect lead in its drinking water and is compliant with federal and state lead regulations. The report lists all detected substances in the city’s drinking water, broken down by each of its three sources. The city tests for more than 90 different substances throughout the year. According to Water Utilities Director Cari Dale, the city closely monitors its drinking water to “ensure the highest quality of water is delivered” to customers.
Nearly one out of five California schools found detectable levels of lead in the drinking water, according to recent data from the State Water Board. Lead is linked to learning disabilities, behavior problems and many other health effects.
A project that is supposed to eventually provide a third of the city’s drinking water is now held up in court because of a dispute between anti-union contractors and a union-friendly city government.The city was about to open bids from contractors who want to work on the Pure Water project, which will take sewage and make it drinkable.
Unsafe drinking water is common in Northern Californian cities. So common, in fact, that Governor Gavin Newsom called it a crisis during his State of the State address in February. That’s why water officials in Sacramento County are taking steps to solve the problem for residents of Hood, a small town located 20 miles south of Sacramento. Sacramento County Water Resources recently broke ground on the new Hood Water Treatment Plant, providing a new source of safe and reliable drinking water for the community.
California legislative leaders agreed Sunday to spend $130 million a year to improve water systems in communities where people can’t drink from their taps, something Democratic leaders say amounts to a crisis in one of the nation’s wealthiest states. To pay for it, the state would tap a fund dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a move that alarmed some environmental activists who say its set up an unfair choice between clean air and water. “What kind of choice is that?” said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California. “People shouldn’t have to choose between clean water and clean air.”
Water is a basic necessity of life, but over one million Californians lack access to clean, safe and affordable drinking water, says Gov. Gavin Newsom. Six million Californians receive their water from operators who have been fined for violating the state’s clean water laws in recent years, according to a 2018 investigation by McClatchy. “In many communities, people drink, shower, cook and wash dishes with water containing excessive amounts of pollutants, including arsenic, nitrates and uranium,” according to a Sacramento Bee story by Dale Kasler, Phillip Reese and Ryan Sabalow. Many of those affected by the lack of safe water live in poorer and more rural areas, and a big portion of those communities are here in the Central Valley.
In the world’s fifth largest economy, in the richest state in the richest nation, some 360,000 Californians have water that is unsafe to drink. That’s the equivalent of about three and a half Flint, Michigans, and it’s an outrage. Worse, it’s a fixable outrage, and the fix is being blocked by vested interests. This stalemate has gone on for more than a year now at the stateCapitol while vulnerable families, many of them in the Central Valley, have lived as if this is a Third World country. Yet state leaders have let a solution slip through their fingers – again
The State Senate has announced a plan to ensure safe drinking water throughout California. The proposal would implement a Safe Drinking Water Fund as outlined under SB 200, authored by Senator Bill Monning (D-Carmel). Rather than relying on new revenues, the Senate’s proposal authorizes the continuous appropriation of $150 million annually from the General Fund, with the same level of protections in place that a new fee would provide to ensure the funds are used only to secure safe drinking water in the most vulnerable communities. “California’s drinking water challenges are too urgent to ignore,” Senate Leader Toni Atkins said.
