At the time I began working at Clean Water Action in 2003, California’s drinking water program proudly announced that 95% of Californians had safe drinking water. Doing the math, I realized that this assertion meant that nearly 2 million Californians did NOT enjoy safe drinking water. This seemed unacceptable. As I began to advocate for access to funding for these communities, I realized the state didn’t really know how many people lacked safe drinking water – many small water systems neglected to report their water quality testing results, and no one tracked private wells.
Over the years, I’ve worked with communities, state and local agencies, and allies to help these Californians access something most of us take for granted: safe and reliable drinking water. Clean Water Action has worked with state legislators to find more funding and make it accessible to these communities, worked with state agencies to improve data collection and oversight, and worked with regulators to establish programs that reduce water pollution and ground water overdraft.
The two most successful efforts have borne fruit in the last 7 years. In 2019, the state legislature adopted SB 200 (Monning) the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, now known as SAFER. The SAFER program provides $130 million annually in flexible funding for things like technical assistance, interim water supplies and assistance for domestic well communities. Paired with traditional infrastructure funding, SAFER has helped over 900,000 Californians access safe drinking water since 2019.
The second success is in information. In 2017, the Legislature gave the Division of Drinking Water $2 million and told them to identify drinking water needs in the state. In 2020, the first annual California Drinking Water Needs Assessment was published. The Assessment identifies failing, at-risk and potentially at-risk water systems and identifies costs for correcting problems. We now know where the most vulnerable communities are located and can target them for solutions; and, for the first time, we can identify systems at risk of failing and work with them to ensure that their customers are protected.
The SAFER program has helped communities that have been without safe drinking water for decades, a huge win. But we still have a long way to go: 600,000 Californians are still served by failing water systems, with 1.4 million at risk for failure.
We’re not resting on our laurels. We’re now trying to institute a low-income rate assistance program for water, which would help as many as 30% of state residents pay their water bill. It’s needed, it’s expensive – and we know we can get it done.
As we celebrate National Drinking Water Week, I look back at the changes Clean Water Action has been part of over the past two decades. Our successes are largely due to persistence. We ask communities what they need, then pester regulators and lobby legislators over and over to get it. It’s both really simple and really hard – and your consistent support has been invaluable in achieving it. Thank you!
