Existing law, the California Safe Drinking Water Act, requires the State Water Resources Control Board to administer provisions relating to the regulation of drinking water to protect public health. Existing law declares it to be the established policy of the state that every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes.

This bill would state findings and declarations relating to the intent of the Legislature to adopt policies to ensure that every Californian has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible drinking water.

ASSEMBLY THIRD READING

ATR Bill Id:AB 134

Author:(Bloom)

As Amended Ver:May 20, 2019

Majority vote

SUMMARY:

Establishes a framework to identify and address drinking water needs throughout the state in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of drinking water service and infrastructure, and to prevent the likelihood of additional and continuing failed water systems.

Major Provisions

1. Requires the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board), upon adoption of the assessment of funding needs for state financial assistance, to convey to each regional engineer a list of at-risk water systems in that region and additional information regarding at-risk water systems and communities reliant on domestic wells that do not supply an adequate or reliable supply of safe drinking water.
2. Requires, by December 31 of each year, the State Water Board to review the assessment of funding needs and to prioritize the public water systems, community water systems, state small water systems, and domestic wells by the most urgent need for financial assistance, based upon specified criteria.
3. Requires, by January 1, 2021, the State Water Board, in consultation with local health officers and other relevant stakeholders, to use available data to make a map of each aquifer that is: at high risk for contaminants; that exceeds primary federal and state drinking water standards; and, that is a source of drinking water for small water systems or domestic wells.
4. Requires each State Water Board regional engineer to arrange for a comprehensive assessment of each at-risk water system in their region, within two years of being identified by the State Water Board as an at-risk water system; to review each comprehensive assessment; and, to develop and submit to the State Water Board a recommendation as to the options or plan presented by the comprehensive assessment.
5. Requires the State Water Board to adopt and provide for a sustainable plan for restoring safe drinking water to every at-risk water system.
6. Declares that it is the intent of the Legislature to review existing laws designed to ensure the long-term adequacy of water supplies as part of the process of approving new development projects and to further integrate water quality and quantity considerations into land use decisions.
7. Requires the State Water Board to report to the Legislature, by July 1, 2025, on its progress in restoring safe drinking water to the state pursuant to the requirements of the bill. Specifies how revenues and expenditures, from the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund (Fund), shall be displayed in the governor's budget.
8. Requires the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) to provide an assessment of expenditures from the Fund at least every five years.
9. Provides that this bill only becomes operative if AB 217 (Eduardo Garcia) is enacted.

COMMENTS:

Human right to water: In 2012, California became the first state to enact a Human Right to Water law (AB 685 (Eng) Chapter 524, Statutes of 2012). Public policy continues to be focused on the right of every human being to have safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitation. Water supply, contaminants, costs of treatment and distribution systems, the number and nature of small public water systems (PWSs), especially in disadvantaged communities, and many other factors will continue to challenge progress in addressing the Human Right to Water.

Lack of clean safe drinking water: Although most of the state's residents receive drinking water that meets federal and state drinking water standards, many drinking water systems in the state consistently fail to provide safe drinking water to their customers. The lack of safe drinking water is a problem that disproportionately affects residents of California's disadvantaged communities. More than 300 drinking water systems in disadvantaged communities, serving approximately 200,000 people, are unable to provide safe drinking water. These systems include 30 schools and daycare centers that serve over 12,000 children.

Current approaches to address a lack of clean safe drinking water: AB 217 (Eduardo Garcia) would create the Safe Drinking Water for All Act to establish the Fund to provide a source of funding to secure access to safe drinking water for all Californians, while also ensuring long-term sustainability of drinking water systems. AB 217 would impose several fees on agricultural activities and a charge on retail water systems that, together, would provide the source of revenue to the Fund.

SB 200 (Monning) would create the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, administered by the State Water Board, to assist communities and individual domestic well users to address contaminants in drinking water that exceed safe drinking water standards. SB 200 would require the State Water Board to adopt a fund implementation plan and would require expenditures of the fund to be consistent with the plan. The bill would require the State Water Board, in consultation with local health officers and others, to make publicly available a map of aquifers that are used or likely to be used as a source of drinking water that are at high risk of contamination.

Governor Newsom has proposed a trailer bill as part of his fiscal year 2019-20 Budget that would establish the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water program (program) to increase access to safe drinking water for Californians. The program would provide certain local water agencies with grants, loans, contracts, or services to help support their operations and maintenance costs. This funding would be supported by new charges proposed by the Governor on water system ratepayers, fertilizer sales, and certain agricultural entities. The proposal also provides enforcement protections for agricultural operations that exceed nitrate groundwater objectives.

AB 134 seeks to ensure the long-term sustainability of drinking water infrastructure and drinking water services necessary to provide safe drinking water for all Californians. This bill provides direction to the State Water Board to identify areas in the state that lack adequate supplies of safe drinking water and requires the State Water Board to utilize this information in order to prioritize funding from the Fund. Moreover, this bill provides additional oversight of the Fund by requiring the LAO to assess the effectiveness of the expenditures from the Fund. This is a prudent approach to ensure that the Legislature and the Administration have the proper information to ensure implementation of an effective funding program that reduces and eliminates contamination from drinking water systems.

According to the Author:

"Across California, hundreds of thousands of people do not have access to safe and affordable drinking water. Roughly 300 public water systems are currently out of compliance with drinking water standards, putting almost 700,000 people at risk, including 12,000 children who are served by schools and daycare centers that use contaminated water. Addressing the needs of disadvantaged communities through a Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund is critical and long-overdue. Ensuring that funds are used transparently and judiciously is also important and this bill ensures that that will happen. This year alone, several measures, including AB 217 and SB 200, as well as the Governor's Budget, propose to create such a fund. AB 134 creates several important reporting requirements for a future Safe and Affordable Drinking Water fund."

Arguments in Support:

According to the Consumer Attorneys of California, "This bill provides a means to support safe and affordable drinking water to all Californians. Access to water is a fundamental human right, recognized throughout the world. California must take active steps to protect and promote this right within the state."

Arguments in Opposition:

None on file.

FISCAL COMMENTS:

According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, enactment of this bill could result in the following costs to the State Water Board that would be paid from the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund: ongoing annual costs of approximately $370,000 to assess the need for state financial assistance for public water systems that fail to supply safe drinking water; annual costs of approximately $740,000 for three years, then ongoing costs of $370,000 to develop regulations to assess the need for state financial assistance for public state small water systems that fail to meet drinking water standards; annual administrative costs of between approximately $1.85 million and $10 million in contracts for two years, then ongoing annual administrative costs of between $1.5 million and $2.5 million in contracts to provide a comprehensive assessment of each failed water system; annual ongoing costs of $3.7 million to manage local advisory committees and organize strike teams during the development of the comprehensive assessment; and, annual ongoing contract costs of $5 million to adopt sustainable plans, including necessary California Environmental Quality Act review.

VOTES:

ASM ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY AND TOXIC MATERIALS: 6-0-3

YES: Quirk, Bloom, Bauer-Kahan, Cristina Garcia, Holden, Muratsuchi

ABS, ABST OR NV: Melendez, Dahle, Mathis

ASM APPROPRIATIONS: 14-1-3

YES: Gonzalez, Bloom, Bonta, Calderon, Carrillo, Chau, Eggman, Gabriel, Eduardo Garcia, Maienschein, Obernolte, Petrie-Norris, Quirk, Robert Rivas

NO: Brough

ABS, ABST OR NV: Bigelow, Diep, Fong

UPDATED:

VERSION: May 20, 2019

CONSULTANT: Pia Estrada / E.S. & T.M. / (916) 319-3965 FN: 0001001

Date of Hearing: May 8, 2019

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Lorena Gonzalez, Chair

ABPCA Bill Id:AB 134

Author:(Bloom) – As Amended Ver:May 1, 2019

Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: Yes Reimbursable: Yes

SUMMARY:

This bill establishes a framework to identify and address drinking water needs throughout the state and prevent the likelihood of additional and continuing failed water systems. Specifically, this bill:

1. Requires the State Water Resources Board (SWRCB), by July 1 every year, to adopt an assessment of state financial need to provide safe drinking water, after a public hearing and based on existing data.
2. Requires the assessment of financial need to, among other things, identify each failed water system throughout the state and the technical, managerial and financial capacity of the entity that operates the system.
3. Requires, by January 1, 2021, SWRCB, in consultation with local health officers and other relevant stakeholders, to use available data to make a map of each aquifer that is: a) at high risk for contaminants; b) exceed primary federal and state drinking water standards; and c) are a source of drinking water for small water systems or domestic wells. Requires the SWRCB to update the map at least annually based on any newly available data.
4. Requires, by January 1, 2021, a local health officer or other relevant local agency to provide SWRCB with the results of all water quality testing for state small water systems and domestic wells, collected after January 1, 2015.
5. Requires each SWRCB regional engineer to arrange for a comprehensive assessment of each failed water system in the region, as specified, to be completed within two years of identification pursuant to #2,
6. Requires each regional engineer to review each comprehensive assessment developed pursuant to #5 and develop and submit a recommendation to SWRCB, as specified.
7. Requires SWRCB to consider each comprehensive assessment and the regional engineer’s recommendations at a public hearing and request recommendations from all divisions of SWRCB to ensure coordination.
8. Requires SWRCB to adopt and provide for a sustainable plan for restoring safe drinking water to every failing system, as specified.
9. Requires SWRCB, when adopting a new or revised primary drinking water standard, to develop an enforcement assistance implementation plan that considers the ability of public water systems that serve disadvantaged communities to comply with the standards. The plan shall include provisions for any public water system that is unable to comply to assist with funding from the Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Program.
10. Requires SWRCB to ensure water systems that serve new communities: a) provide safe drinking water; b) fulfill legal requirements for technical, managerial and financial capacity; and c) will be sustainable over the long term.
11. Requires SWRCB to report to the Legislature, by July 1, 2025, on its progress in restoring safe drinking water to the state pursuant to the requirements of the bill. Specifies how revenues and expenditures shall be displayed in the governor’s budget.
12. Requires the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) to provide an assessment of expenditures at least every five years.
13. Requires SWRCB to create an internet website for all activities associated with this bill in conjunction with the implementation of the Open and Transparent Data Act.
14. Provides this bill only becomes operative if AB 217 (E. Garcia) is enacted.

FISCAL EFFECT:

1. This bill will cost SWRCB between approximately $122 million to $1.1 billion per year (Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund) and require 42 new staff positions as follows:
2. Ongoing annual costs of approximately $370,000 to assess the need for state financial assistance for public water systems that fail to supply safe drinking water and exceed the affordability threshold.
3. Annual costs of approximately $740,000 for three years, then ongoing costs of $370,000 to develop regulations to assess the need for state financial assistance for public state small water systems that fail to meet all primary and secondary drinking water standards.
4. Annual administrative costs of approximately $1.85 million and $10 million in contracts for two years then ongoing annual administrative costs of $1.5 million and $2.5 million in contracts to provide a comprehensive assessment of each failed water system. This estimate is based on approximately $500,000 in average costs per evaluation with 200 systems evaluated in the first two years and 50 systems evaluated each year after.
5. Annual ongoing costs of $3.7 million to manage local advisory committees and organize strike teams during the development of the comprehensive assessment.
6. Annual ongoing contract costs of $5 million to adopt sustainable plans including necessary CEQA review. This estimate is based on the adoption of five plans a year with CEQA/EIR costs of $1 million each.
7. Annual ongoing staffing costs of approximately $1 million and between $50 million and $500 million in local assistance for the enforcement of any new drinking water standard in disadvantaged communities, including providing funding for any public water system found to be unable to comply with new or revised standards.
8. Annual ongoing local assistance costs of between $50 million and $500 million to ensure water systems serving new communities will provide safe, affordable drinking water and will be sustainable.
9. Unknown, potentially significant, reimbursable state-mandated local costs for the increased duties of local health officials.

COMMENTS:

1. Purpose. This bill establishes a comprehensive new approach to addressing the state’s current contaminated, and in some cases unaffordable, drinking water supply and establishes safeguards and mechanisms to prevent the same problems in the future.

This bill requires SWRCB to first assess the financial need throughout the state to address failing water systems. Next, the regional offices of the SWRCB arrange for a comprehensive assessment of each failing water system in their respective regions including the conditions of its infrastructure, water supply and quality and governance, among other considerations. The regional assessments are then submitted to SWCRB for consideration and adoption into a sustainable plan.

Going forward, this bill requires SWRCB to consider whether public water systems in disadvantaged communities will be able to comply with new or revised drinking water standards and develop a plan to assist with funding and enforcement.

This bill provides placeholder language to prevent future failing water systems by requiring SWRCB to ensure water systems that serve new communities will meet all legal requirements and will be sustainable in the long term.

1. Companion Legislation. AB 217 (E. Garcia) creates the Safe Drinking Water for All Act, administered by SWRCB, and imposes water, fertilizer, dairy and confined animal facility fees to fund grants and loans for safe drinking water programs throughout the state. AB 134 is single-joined to AB 217. The bill is pending in this committee.
2. Related and Prior Legislation. SB 200 (Monning), creates the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, administered by the SWRCB to assist communities and individual domestic well users to address contaminants in drinking water that exceed safe drinking water standards. The bill is pending in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

SB 669 (Caballero) establishes the Safe Drinking Water Fund to assist community water systems in disadvantaged communities that are chronically noncompliant. The bill creates the Safe Drinking Water Trust Fund to receive funding from the state and is the funding source for the Safe Drinking Water Fund. The bill is pending in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

SB 623 (Monning), of the 2017-18 Legislative Session, would have created the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, administered by SWRCB, and would have imposed water, fertilizer and dairy fees to fund safe drinking water programs. The bill was held in the Assembly Rules Committee.

Analysis Prepared by: Jennifer Galehouse / APPR. / (916) 319-2081

Date of Hearing: March 26, 2019

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY AND TOXIC MATERIALS

Bill Quirk, Chair

ABPCA Bill Id:AB 134 (

Author:Bloom) – As Proposed to be Amended Ver:March 25, 2019

SUBJECT: Safe, clean, affordable, and accessible drinking water

SUMMARY: Requires funding from a Safe Drinking Water Fund (Fund) or Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund (Fund) to be displayed in the Governor's annual budget and requires at least every five years the Legislative Analyst Office's (LAO) to provide an assessment of the effectiveness of expenditures from the Fund.

EXISTING LAW:

1) Establishes the California Safe Drinking Water Act (California SDWA) and requires the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) to maintain a drinking water program. (Health & Safety Code (HSC) § 116270, et seq.)

2) Requires the State Water Board to submit to the Legislature a comprehensive Safe Drinking Water Plan for California every five years. (HSC § 116355 (a))

3) Establishes as the policy of the state that every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes. (Water Code § 106.3)

FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown.

COMMENTS:

Need for the bill: According to the author, "Across California, hundreds of thousands of people do not have access to safe and affordable drinking water. Roughly 300 public water systems are currently out of compliance with drinking water standards, putting almost 700,000 people at risk, including 12,000 children who are served by schools and daycare centers that use contaminated water. Addressing the needs of disadvantaged communities through a Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund is critical and long-overdue. Ensuring that funds are used transparently and judiciously is also important and this bill ensures that that will happen. This year alone, several measures, including AB 217 and SB 200, as well as the Governor’s Budget, propose to create such a fund. AB 134 creates several important reporting requirements for a future Safe and Affordable Drinking Water fund."

Human right to water: In 2012, California became the first state to enact a Human Right to Water law (AB 685 Eng, Chapter 524, Statutes of 2012). Public policy continues to be focused on the right of every human being to have safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitation. Water supply, contaminants, costs of treatment and distribution systems, the number and nature of small public water systems (PWSs), especially in disadvantaged communities, and many other factors will continue to challenge progress in addressing the Human Right to Water.

Regulation of drinking water. The federal SDWA was enacted in 1974 to protect public health by regulating drinking water. California has enacted its own SDWA to implement the federal law and establish state standards. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) enforces the federal SDWA at the national level. However, most states, including California, have been granted "primacy" by the U.S. EPA, giving them authority to implement and enforce the federal SDWA at the state level.

Maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) are health-based drinking water standards that public water systems are required to meet. MCLs take into account the health risk, detectability, treatability, and costs of treatment associated with a pollutant. Agencies responsible for regulating water quality enforce these standards.

The State Water Board regulates public water systems that provide water for human consumption and have 15 or more service connections, or regularly serve at least 25 individuals daily at least 60 days out of the year. (A "service connection" is usually the point of access between a water system’s service pipe and a user’s piping.) The state does not regulate water systems with less than 15 connections; county health officers oversee them. At the local level, 30 of the 58 county environmental health departments in California have been delegated primacy—known as Local Primacy Agencies (LPAs)—by the State Water Board to regulate systems with between 15 and 200 connections within their jurisdiction. For investor-owned water utilities under the jurisdiction of California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the State Water Board or LPAs share water quality regulatory authority with CPUC.

The State Water Board regulates approximately 7,500 water systems. About one-third of these systems have between 15 and 200 service connections. The number of smaller systems—specifically, those with 14 or fewer connections—is unknown but estimated to be in the thousands.

Multiple causes of unsafe drinking water: The causes of unsafe drinking water can generally be separated into two categories: (1) contamination caused by human action, and (2) naturally occurring contaminants. In some areas, there are both human caused and natural contaminants in the drinking water.

Three of the most commonly detected pollutants in contaminated water in California are arsenic, perchlorate, and nitrates. While arsenic is naturally occurring, perchlorate contamination is generally a result of military and industrial uses. High concentrations of nitrate in groundwater are primarily caused by human activities, including fertilizer application (synthetic and manure), animal operations, industrial sources (wastewater treatment and food processing facilities), and septic systems. Agricultural fertilizers and animal wastes applied to cropland are by far the largest regional sources of nitrate in groundwater, although other sources can be important in certain areas.

Lack of clean safe drinking water: Although most of the state’s residents receive drinking water that meets federal and state drinking water standards, many drinking water systems in the state consistently fail to provide safe drinking water to their customers. Lack of safe drinking water is a problem that disproportionately affects residents of California’s disadvantaged communities. More than 300 drinking water systems in disadvantaged communities, serving approximately 200,000 people, are unable to provide safe drinking water. These systems include 30 schools and daycare centers that serve over 12,000 children.

Disadvantaged communities often lack the rate base, as well as the technical, managerial, and financial capacity to show they can afford and effectively manage operations and maintenance costs related to water treatment. Without being able to pay for maintenance, these communities are effectively barred from accessing capital improvement funding. In contrast, larger water systems have the financial capacity both to pay treatment costs and to provide for a well-trained and technically competent workforce of water system operators.

Current sources of financial assistance, such as Proposition 1, the Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014 (Rendon, Chapter 188, Statutes of 2014), and the safe drinking water state revolving fund (SDWSRF), do not provide financial assistance for the long-term operation and maintenance costs of drinking water systems, which the community must provide in order to qualify for the capital improvement funding that is available from those sources. Disadvantaged communities often lack the rate base to pay for operation and maintenance costs, meaning that they are effectively prohibited from accessing capital improvement funding.

Recent approaches to address lack of funding to provide safe drinking water to disadvantaged communities: SB 623 (Monning, 2017) would have created the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, administered by the State Water Board, and sought to impose water, fertilizer, and dairy fees to fund safe drinking water programs. The bill would have imposed a Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fee (water fee) on each customer of a PWS. Additionally, it would have required the State Water Board, in consultation with local health officers and other relevant stakeholders, to develop and annually update a map of aquifers at high risk of containing contaminants that exceed state and federal primary drinking water standards. SB 623 would have prohibited the State Water Board or regional water quality board from specified enforcement actions against agricultural operations for exceeding nitrate groundwater objectives or other groundwater pollution standards if the operation demonstrates certain mitigation requirements are met, including the timely payment of the fertilizer or dairy fee. That bill was held in the Assembly Rules Committee.

Governor Newsom's proposal: The proposal by Governor Newsom as part of his 2019-2020 budget is substantially similar to SB 623 (Monning) by also imposing a water fee and similar agriculture related fees. The proposal also provides similar enforcement protections for agricultural operations that exceeded nitrate groundwater objectives.

Current legislative approaches: Three bills have be introduced in 2019 to address the issues raised by SB 623 and Governor Newsom's budget proposal.

AB 217 (Eduardo Garcia) would create the Safe Drinking Water for All Act (Act) to establish a Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund (Fund) to provide a source of funding to secure access to safe drinking water for all Californians, while also ensuring long-term sustainability of drinking water systems. The bill would impose several fees on agricultural activities and create a trust fund using investments from the state General Fund that, together, would provide the source of revenue to the Fund.

SB 200 (Monning) would create the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, administered by the State Water Board, to assist communities and individual domestic well users to address contaminants in drinking water that exceed safe drinking water standards.

SB 669 (Caballero) would create the Safe Drinking Water Fund to assist community water systems in disadvantaged communities that are chronically noncompliant with safe drinking water standards. The bill would create the Safe Drinking Water Trust Fund to receive funding from the state and provide the fund source to the Safe Drinking Water Fund.

AB 134 seeks to ensure that there is transparency in the annual budget process associated with a Safe Drinking Water Fund or Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, regardless of which Fund is established. Moreover, this bill provides additional oversight of the Fund by requiring the LAO to assess the effectiveness of the expenditures from the Fund. This is a very prudent approach to ensure that the Legislature and the Administration have the proper information to ensure implementation of an effective program that provides funding to reduce and eliminate contamination from drinking water systems.

Related legislation:

1) AB 217 (Eduardo Garcia). Creates the Safe Drinking Water for All Act (Act) which establishes a Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund (Fund) to provide a source of funding to secure access to safe drinking water for all Californians, while also ensuring long-term sustainability of drinking water systems. Imposes several fees on agricultural activities and creates a trust fund utilizing investments from the state General Fund that together would provide the source of revenue to the Fund. This bill is set to be heard in the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee on March 26, 2019.

2) SB 200 (Monning). Creates the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, administered by the State Water Board, to assist communities and individual domestic well users to address contaminants in drinking water that exceed safe drinking water standards. This bill passed the Senate Environmental Quality Committee on March 20, 2019 and was been referred to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water and is set for hearing on April 23, 2019.

3) SB 669 (Caballero). Establishes the Safe Drinking Water Fund to assist community water systems in disadvantaged communities that are chronically noncompliant. Creates Safe Drinking Water Trust Fund to receive funding from the state and provide the fund source to the Safe Drinking Water Fund. This bill is set for hearing in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee on April 9, 2019.

4) SB 623 (Monning, 2017). Would have created the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, administered by the State Water Board, and would have imposed water, fertilizer, and dairy fees to fund safe drinking water programs. This bill was held in the Assembly Rules Committee.

Analysis Prepared by: Pia Estrada / E.S. & T.M. /