BILL ANALYSIS
AB 301
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Senator S. Joseph Simitian, Chairman
2009-2010 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 301
AUTHOR: Fuentes
AMENDED: April 1, 2009
FISCAL: Yes HEARING DATE: June 22, 2009
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT: Rachel Machi
Wagoner
SUBJECT : VENDED WATER
SUMMARY :
Existing law :
1) Under the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Law prescribes
various quality, reporting and labeling standards for
bottled water and private water sources.
2) Authorizes the state to assume responsibility for managing
the safety of its drinking water quality if the state is
certified as having a program at least as stringent as the
federal program pursuant to the federal Safe Drinking Water
Act (SDWA), which establishes the framework for regulating
drinking water quality in the United States by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
3) Requires the State Department of Public Health (DPH) to
enforce the SDWA and to charge and collect a fee for each
license application submitted, in an amount reasonably
necessary to produce sufficient revenue for DPH enforcement
efforts and in accordance with a prescribed fee schedule.
4) Requires a water-bottling plant to annually prepare a
bottled water report as a condition of licensure and to
make the report available to each customer.
5) Requires each label on bottled water sold at retail or
wholesale in California to report stipulated information,
including the source of the bottled water, effective
January 1, 2009.
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This bill :
1) Requires each applicant for a license as a water-bottling
plant or a private water source to provide the DPH with
specified information, as follows:
a) The total volume of water bottled or sold either for
wholesale or retail use as specified, including best
estimates of information for new applicants.
b) Whether the source of the water bottled or sold is a
public or private water agency or an artesian well,
lake, river, spring, or well, as appropriate.
c) The county in which the source is located and whether
the location is privately or publicly held.
2) Requires DPH to annually compile specified information,
make it available to the public and to ensure that the
compilation of information reported does not contain
duplicative data as to applicants applying for both a
water-bottling plant and private water source license.
COMMENTS:
1) Purpose of Bill . According to the author, there is
currently no information available regarding the amount of
water pulled from groundwater aquifers or surface water
supplies by water bottlers and vending operations. The
author states that simple reporting requirements disclosing
the amount of water extracted as well as the source of the
water would help provide clear and important information on
how our state's limited water supplies are put to use. In
a time of ongoing state drought and calls for water
rationing, it is important that we know how much of our
state's most precious resource is bottled and shipped each
year.
2) What bottled water companies operate in California and
where are they located ? By 2006, the DPH licensed an
estimated 181 bottling plants to sell water in California.
Of these plants, 112 are located within California, 43
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plants are in other US states, and 26 plants are located
outside of the US.
Approximately 119 different "companies" operate the 181 plants
licensed by DPH. Eighty-six companies operate the bottling
plants located in California. Some of these are
subsidiaries of larger corporations, so the total number of
independent bottlers may be substantially lower.
Bottling plants are located in 33 counties throughout
California. Bottling plants are concentrated in several
counties in Southern California. The number of bottling
plants within a single county provides neither an
indication of the total quantity of water extracted nor the
source or type of water bottled. Because the impact of
groundwater extraction depends on site-specific
characteristics of the groundwater aquifer, one cannot make
any inference on which regions are most heavily impacted.
3) Potential Impacts of Extracted Water . Bottling plants can
deplete local groundwater aquifers and associated surface
water resources. If the rate of groundwater extraction
exceeds the rate of natural replenishment, then groundwater
levels decline, posing serious problems for those dependent
of wells for their water supply. Continued depletion of
groundwater can cause some aquifers to collapse, resulting
in permanent loss of the aquifer and land subsidence. In
addition, groundwater provides water for local streams,
particularly in the summer. As groundwater levels decline,
water in local streams can also decline or even run dry.
4) What regions or populations are potentially impacted by the
industry ? The bottled water industry claims that they
account for less than 0.02% of the United States' total
fresh groundwater withdrawals. Yet, many of the concerns
about groundwater withdrawals may be local in nature,
especially in situations where a bottled water plant may be
responsible for a substantial fraction of local groundwater
use. The actual impacts will be site-specific and thus
using national level data is inaccurate.
Bottled water plants are located throughout the state and thus
all residents of California are potentially impacted by the
bottled water industry. Farmers, fisheries, and rural
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communities, however, tend to suffer the greatest impacts.
As groundwater levels decline, farmers and municipalities
dependent on groundwater are forced to pump water from
deeper depths, thereby increasing energy costs. Declining
groundwater levels can deplete local streams, thereby
placing fish and those dependent on fish at risk.
5) Related Legislation .
AB 2275 (Fuentes) of 2008 is substantially similar to AB 301,
and required each applicant for a license as a
water-bottling plant or a private water source to provide
specified information to DPH and required DPH to annually
compile a listing of this information and make it available
to the public, as provided. Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed
AB 2275, with a generic veto message he uniformly applied
to several bills that reached his desk in 2008.
AB 2186 (Salas) of 2008 required each water-vending
machine, retail water facility, and private water source
that sells water at retail to display the identity of the
source from which the water was last obtained prior to
being bottled. The bill was held in Assembly Environmental
Safety and Toxic Materials Committee at the request of the
author.
AB 1521 (Salas) of 2007 required each container of bottled
water sold in this state to include on its label the
identity of the source from which the water was last
obtained prior to being bottled, in compliance with
applicable federal regulations. Also required, as a
condition of licensure, a water-bottling plant to annually
prepare and submit to the department a consumer confidence
report. Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed AB 1521.
SB 220 (Corbett) Chapter 575, Statutes of 2007, requires a
water-bottling plant to annually prepare a bottled water
report, including information about the source of the
bottled water, (i.e. a spring, drilled well, or municipal
water supply), as a condition of licensure. The report
must also include a brief description of the treatment
process used for producing the bottled water. This bill
also enhanced the DPH regulatory process governing water
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dispensed from water vending machines and the labeling
requirements for bottled water.
AB 2644 (Montanez) of 2006 increased the annual license fee
for a water-vending machine to $40, and required
water-vending machines to be cleaned and serviced at least
once every 31 days. The bill would have required that
maintenance and complaint records be kept for a minimum of
two years and be made available to the department upon
request. AB 2644 was held on Senate Appropriations
Committee suspense file.
SB 1772 (Ashburn) of 2006 required the Department of Health
Services to ensure that samples of water-vending machines
are inspected annually and would set forth the inspection
criteria. This bill also increased the license fee per
vending machine from $10.25 to $25, adjusted annually. SB
1772 was held in the Assembly Environmental Safety and
Toxic Materials committee without hearing.
SB 1302 (Alarcon) of 2004 required the Department of Health
Services to conduct annual random inspections of
water-vending machines and retail water vendors through
visual inspections and the collection and testing of water
samples. The bill required the department to make all
information collected in the random inspections available
to the public, conduct a consumer education program and
assess a fee sufficient to pay the costs of the random
inspections and the education program. SB 1302 was held on
the Assembly Appropriations Committee suspense file.
SB 1589 (Denham) of 2004 required that bottled water may
not exceed 10 parts per billion of total triahalomethanes
or 5 parts per billion of lead, unless the department
establishes a lower level by regulation, and vended water
may not exceed 10 parts per billion of total
triahalomethanes, on average, or 5 parts per billion of
lead for public drinking water. The bill was held in the
Senate Health and Human Services Committee at the request
of the author.
AB 83 (Corbett) of 2003 transferred the provisions relating
to the licensure and regulation of persons engaged in the
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bottled water activities from the Sherman Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Law to the California Safe Drinking Water Act. It
required specified information on labeling and in
advertising bottled water products; required bottled water
licensees to comply with provisions similar to those
imposed on public water systems regarding emergency
notification plans, consumer confidence reports, and
inspections and revised the annual license fee schedule.
AB 83 failed passage on the Senate Floor.
6) Arguments in support . Supporters contend that credible and
transparent information would help both the public and
decision makers to understand more accurately the impacts
of proposed bottled-water facilities in California. Without
this information, local communities and decision makers may
not know exactly how much of their local water supply is
sold and transported out of the local area.
7) Arguments in opposition . DPH does not believe that this
bill will provide any improvement in public health
protection to California consumers. DPH feels that the
information they already collect regarding the identity of
source water from bottlers is sufficient to ensure quality.
DPH also believes the information they are being asked to
collect may be considered proprietary, because it can act
as an indicator of a company's financial health. DPH also
states that this bill places an unfunded mandate on the
department.
SOURCE : Food and Water Watch
SUPPORT : Alliance for Democracy
American Federation of State, County and
Municipal
Amigos de los Rios
Employees, AFL-CIO
Breast Cancer Fund
California Apollo Alliance
California Coastkeeper Alliance
Center on Policy Initiatives
Clean Water Action
Concerned Citizen's Coalition of Stockton
Concerned McCloud Citizens
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East Bay Municipal Utility District
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Environmental Working Group
Friends of the Los Angeles River
McCloud Watershed Council
Movement Generation
Planning and Conservation League
San Diego Area Municipal Employees Union
San Diego Bay Council
Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the
Environment
Santa Monica Bay Keeper
Southern California Watershed Alliance
TreePeople
Tuolumne River Trust
Urban Semillas
Wildcoast
1 resident
OPPOSITION : California Department of Public Health