BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Senator Wieckowski, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 2022
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|Author: |Gordon |
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|Version: |3/31/2016 |Hearing |6/15/2016 |
| | |Date: | |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Rachel Machi Wagoner |
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SUBJECT: Advanced purified demonstration water.
ANALYSIS:
Existing federal law:
1)Authorizes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), under the
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, to regulate bottled water
products that are in interstate commerce.
2)Authorizes the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US
EPA), under the Safe Drinking Water Act, to set national
health-based standards for drinking water to protect against both
naturally-occurring and anthropogenic contaminants.
3)Requires, when US EPA sets a new standard for a contaminant in
drinking water, that the FDA must establish a new standard for the
same contaminant in bottled water or find that US EPA's new
standard is not applicable to bottled water.
Existing state law:
1)Authorizes the Department of Public Health (DPH) to license and
regulate manufacturers of bottled water and vended water.
Establishes requirements for bottled, vended, hauled and processed
water.
2)Requires, as a condition of licensure, water-bottling plants to
annually prepare a bottled water report, including disclosure of
the source of the bottled water, and to make the report available
AB 2022 (Gordon) Page 2 of ?
to each customer.
3)Requires the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to
maintain a drinking water program.
4)Declares that a substantial portion of the future water
requirements of this state may be economically met by beneficial
use of recycled water. Finds that the utilization of recycled
water by local communities for domestic, agricultural, industrial,
recreational, and fish and wildlife purposes will contribute to
the peace, health, safety and welfare of the people of the state.
5)Requires the SWRCB to establish uniform statewide recycling
criteria for the various uses of recycled water where the use
involves the protection of public health.
6)States that although there has been much scientific research on
public health issues associated with indirect potable reuse
through groundwater recharge, there are a number of significant
unanswered questions regarding indirect potable reuse through
surface water augmentation and direct potable reuse.
7)Defines "direct potable reuse" as introducing recycled water
either directly into a public water system or into a raw water
supply immediately upstream of a water treatment plant; "indirect
potable reuse for groundwater recharge" as using recycled water to
replenish a groundwater basin or an aquifer that has been
designated as a source of water supply for a public drinking water
system; and, "surface water augmentation" as placing recycled
water into a surface water reservoir used as a source of domestic
drinking water supply.
8)Requires SWRCB, by December 31, 2013, to adopt uniform water
recycling criteria for indirect potable reuse for groundwater
recharge.
9)Requires SWRCB, by December 31, 2016, to develop and adopt uniform
water recycling criteria for surface water augmentation.
10) Requires, prior to adopting water recycling criteria for surface
water augmentation, SWRCB to submit the proposed criteria to the
expert panel, which is required to review the proposed criteria
and adopt a finding as to whether, in its expert opinion, the
proposed criteria would adequately protect public health.
AB 2022 (Gordon) Page 3 of ?
11) Prohibits the SWRCB from adopting uniform water recycling
criteria for surface water augmentation unless and until the
expert panel adopts a finding that the proposed criteria would
adequately protect public health.
12) Requires SWRCB, on or before December 31, 2016, to investigate
and report to the Legislature on the feasibility of developing
uniform water recycling criteria for direct potable reuse.
13) Requires the SWRCB, in conducting the investigation on direct
potable reuse, to examine all of the following, among other
criteria:
a) The availability and reliability of recycled water treatment
technologies necessary to ensure the protection of public
health;
b) Multiple barriers and sequential treatment processes that
may be appropriate at wastewater and water treatment
facilities;
c) Available information on health effects;
d) Mechanisms that should be employed to protect public health
if problems are found in recycled water that is being served to
the public as a potable water supply; and,
e) Monitoring needed to ensure protection of public health,
including, but not limited to, the identification of
appropriate indicator and surrogate constituents.
14) Requires SWRCB to convene and administer an expert panel to
advise it on public health issues and scientific and technical
matters regarding development of uniform water recycling criteria
for indirect potable reuse through surface water augmentation and
investigation of the feasibility of developing uniform water
recycling criteria for direct potable reuse.
15) Delineates advanced treatment criteria for oxidized wastewater.
(CCR, Title 22, §60320.201)
This bill: authorizes the distribution of advanced purified
demonstration water for educational purposes and the promotion of
recycled water. Specifically, this bill:
AB 2022 (Gordon) Page 4 of ?
1) Authorizes the operator of an advanced water purification
facility (facility) to bottle (up to eight ounces) and
distribute the water if it meets or exceeds all federal and
state drinking water standards and goals.
2) Establishes bottling and labeling requirements.
3) Prohibits a facility from bottling more than 1,000 gallons
of water per calendar year.
4) Requires the facility operator to establish a collection and
recycling program for distributed bottles.
5) Specifies that a violation of these provisions does not
constitute a crime, but clarifies that the bill does not exempt
a facility from any federal standard for bottling water.
Background
1) Recycled water: Water recycling is reusing treated
wastewater for direct beneficial or controlled purposes, such
as for agricultural and landscape irrigation, industrial
processes, toilet flushing, and replenishing groundwater
basins. According the US EPA, recycled water can satisfy most
water demands, as long as it is adequately treated to ensure
water quality appropriate for the use. In addition to
providing a dependable, locally controlled water supply, water
recycling can provide environmental benefits. By providing an
additional source of water, water recycling can decrease the
diversion of water from sensitive ecosystems. Other benefits
include decreasing wastewater discharges and reducing and
preventing pollution. Recycled water can also be used to create
or enhance wetlands and riparian habitats.
2) State water recycling policy: In 2009, the SWRCB adopted
AB 2022 (Gordon) Page 5 of ?
Resolution No. 2009-0011 to update the state's water recycling
policy. This state policy includes the goal of increasing the
use of recycled water in the state over 2002 levels by at least
1 million acre feet per year by 2020 and by at least 2 million
acre feet per year by 2030. State law recognizes that the use
of recycled water for indirect potable reuse is critical to
achieving the SWRCB's goals for increased use of recycled water
for the state. State law also declares that the achievement of
the state's goals depends on the timely development of uniform
statewide recycling criteria for indirect and direct potable
water reuse. State law states that although there has been
much scientific research on public health issues associated
with indirect potable reuse through groundwater recharge, there
are a number of significant unanswered questions regarding
indirect potable reuse through surface water augmentation and
direct potable reuse.
3) Recent legislative and regulatory action on recycled water
in California: SB 918 (Pavley, Chapter 700, Statutes of 2010)
revised the state's approach to regulating recycled water by
requiring DPH to establish uniform statewide recycling criteria
for each use of recycled water where the use involves the
protection of public health. In 2014, all authority and
responsibility for the state's drinking water programs were
transferred from DPH to SWRCB, including the recycled water
program (Health and Safety Code §1116271).
SB 918 requires SWRCB (formerly DPH) to take action on three uses
of recycled water. First, it required the SWRCB, by December 31,
2013, to adopt uniform recycled water criteria for indirect
potable reuse for groundwater recharge. The SWRCB has developed
uniform regulations authorizing the use of highly treated
wastewater for groundwater recharge, if specified requirements are
met, including a requirement that the treated wastewater must have
a residence time in the ground of at least two months, before
reaching drinking water intake pumps. These regulations went into
effect on June 18, 2014.
Second, SB 918 requires the SWRCB, by December 31, 2016, to
develop and adopt uniform water recycling criteria for surface
water augmentation. The law also requires SWRCB to convene and
administer an expert panel to advise it on public health,
scientific, and technical matters regarding the development of
uniform water recycling criteria for indirect potable reuse
through surface water augmentation. The SWRCB reports that it is
AB 2022 (Gordon) Page 6 of ?
currently working with the expert panel and it is developing
regulations for surface water augmentation with recycled water.
It is on target to adopt these regulations by December 31, 2016.
Finally, SB 918, and later SB 322 (Hueso, Chapter 637, Statutes of
2013), require SWRCB, by December 31, 2016, to investigate and
report to the Legislature on the feasibility of developing uniform
water recycling criteria for direct potable reuse. Statute
requires SWRCB to examine specific information, including the
availability and reliability of recycled water treatment
technologies necessary to ensure the protection of public health;
barriers and treatment processes that may be appropriate at
wastewater and water treatment facilities; available information
on health effects; mechanisms that should be employed to protect
public health if problems are found in recycled water that is
being served to the public as a potable water supply; and,
monitoring needed to ensure protection of public health. The law
also requires SWRCB to convene and administer an expert panel to
advise in the investigation of the feasibility of developing
uniform water recycling criteria for direct potable reuse.
SWRCB has convened and is currently working with the expert panel,
and expects to release the required report on direct potable reuse
of recycled water by December 31, 2016. There is some concern
about allowing the bottling and direct drinking of treated
recycled water prior to the release of the SWRCB's report on the
safety of the direct potable reuse of recycled water.
4) Recycled water for direct consumption: In California,
SWRCB's Division of Drinking Water (DDW), in conjunction with
the appropriate Regional Water Quality Control Boards, which
are the permitting authorities, are responsible for evaluating
the treatment, production, distribution, and use of recycled
water. DDW does not regulate public consumption of treated
recycled water from projects that do not meet the definition of
a public water system per CCR, Title 22, Section 64400. The
SWRCB has not approved the use of any recycled water, including
advanced purified drinking water, for direct potable reuse. The
US EPA does not have regulations for treating wastewater to
drinking water quality; they leave it up to the states to do
so.
While the SWRCB does regulate recycled water, it does not
regulate bottled water or vended water -- these are regulated
as food by DPH's Food and Drug Branch. It is unclear how
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bottled advanced purified drinking water would be regulated
under the California bottled water law.
5) Concerns about recycled water for direct consumption: While
recycled water has potential for providing solutions for the
state's limited water resources, recycled water regulations are
currently being developed and potential human health impacts of
the direct consumption of recycled water are being studied.
Numerous contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals, personal care
products (antibacterial soaps, sunscreen, bath gels, etc.),
flame retardants, and other constituents of emerging concern,
are more likely to be present in municipal wastewater than in
other water sources. Although they typically exist in small
concentrations, there is growing concern about the impact of
constituents of emerging concern, and other unregulated
compounds, on public health and the environment. Since there
are currently no state or federal drinking water standards for
these constituents, allowing the direct consumption of treated
recycled water, as opposed to consumption after a spatial or
temporal buffer as is required with groundwater or surface
water recharging, may be cause for caution.
6) Orange County Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS):
Operational since January 2008, Orange County's GWRS is the
world's largest advanced water purification system for potable
reuse, producing about 100 million gallons a day of highly
purified potable water. A joint project of the Orange County
Water District and the Orange County Sanitation District (which
are also jointly sponsoring this bill), the GWRS takes treated
wastewater from the Orange County Sanitation District and
treats it further using microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and
ultraviolet light with hydrogen peroxide. According to the
Orange County Water District, the product water is
near-distilled-quality. Currently, roughly half of the
purified water from the GWRS is injected into Orange County's
expanded seawater intrusion barrier. The remaining water is
piped to percolation basins in Anaheim where the water filters
through clay and rock into groundwater aquifers. There, the
water blends with the existing groundwater before it is used as
drinking water for northern and central Orange County
residents.
Treated water samples are currently offered to visitors at the GWRS.
The Orange County Water District states that while the advanced
purified water that they produce meets or exceeds all state and
AB 2022 (Gordon) Page 8 of ?
federal drinking water standards, it still faces a tough battle with
public perception. They argue that the sampling of advanced
purified water is seen as one of the most effective ways of
educating policymakers and members of the community about the safe
purification process for this growing source of water supply. They
contend that public understanding of the purity of this water is
seen as a key requirement for more widespread acceptance of potable
reuse in California.
Comments
1)Purpose of Bill. According to the author, with the use of
advanced water purification technology, billions of gallons of
water that would otherwise be wasted and sent to the ocean can be
reused as a safe and reliable source of new
precipitation-independent water to help fulfill California's
ever-growing demand. Currently, only someone visiting a facility
may sample the water.
This bill allows the bottling of small amounts of advanced
purified water to expand educational opportunities to Californians
who don't have the opportunity or means to visit facilities.
According to the author, this water will not be sold; instead, it
will be used to demonstrate to a broader audience the cutting-edge
technology used to purify wastewater to near-distilled water
quality.
2)Analyzing and preparing for the unanticipated. Both the federal
and state Safe Drinking Water Acts are structured to set standards
for known contaminants that impact source waters- not emerging
issues. Recycling water creates a new issue. Recycled water is
wastewater that goes back into productive use. Waste water will
have been far more likely if not definitely contaminated with
constituents that do not have standards set in statute or
regulation for treatment. For example, pharmaceutical
constituents are still evading waste water and water recycling
facilities from successful complete removal of all pharmaceutical
constituents.
In an article published in the Washington Post on June 10, 2016,
the author states that "For all the pathogens and chemicals
monitored by the federal government to protect drinking water, a
far broader universe of 'emerging contaminants' is going
unregulated."
AB 2022 (Gordon) Page 9 of ?
The Environmental Protection Agency keeps tabs on scores of
substances that have surfaced in water systems around the country,
with the aim of restricting those that endanger public health. But
partly because the rules that the agency must follow are
complicated and contentious, officials have failed to successfully
regulate any new contaminant in two decades.
Only once since the 1990s has the EPA come close to imposing a new
standard - for perchlorate, a chemical found in explosives, road
flares, rocket fuel and, it turns out, the drinking water of over
16 million people.
The years of inaction, critics say, have left many Americans at
potential risk from substances that few even realize might be in
their water in the first place."
Recycled water may exacerbate this situation because these
emerging contaminants are completely unregulated at this point.
In a recent study published in Environmental Science & Technology
researchers found that anticonvulsive epilepsy drug carbamazepine,
which is released in urine, can accumulate in crops irrigated with
recycled water and end up in the urine of produce-eaters not on
the drugs. The study validates the long-held suspicion that
pharmaceuticals may get trapped in infinite urine to food to urine
loops, exposing consumers to drug doses with unknown health
effects.
While the amounts of the drug in the patients' urine were four
orders of magnitude lower than what is seen in the urine of
patients purposefully taking the drugs, researchers speculate that
the trace amounts could still have health effects in some people,
such as those with a genetic sensitivity to the drugs, pregnant
women, children, and those who eat a lot of produce, such as
vegetarians. And with the growing practice of reclaiming
wastewater for crop irrigation-particularly in places that face
water shortages such as California, Israel, and Spain-the produce
contamination could become more common and more potent, the
authors argue.
Water used for crop irrigation does not nearly meet the level of
treatment of advanced treated purified water. The study simply
illustrates that there are still concerns that need to be
AB 2022 (Gordon) Page 10 of ?
addressed before recycled water is used for all purposes.
This bill exempts, for educational purposes, advance purified
bottled water from all regulatory requirements in current law
under the presumption that it is safe to drink in advance of the
SB 918 SWRCB review.
3)Getting out ahead. SB 918 directed SWRCB to conduct a feasibility
study for the direct potable reuse of water. That feasibility
study and the accompanying scientific review are due by the end of
this year. SWRCB is on target to meet that mandate. Why would
the Legislature go counter to its own directive and exempt
recycled water, even in this limited context, from the regulatory
requirements, accountability and enforceability of both the Safe
Drinking Water Act and the bottled water requirements under both
state and federal less than 6 months before the feasibility report
is due from SWRCB? It may be more appropriate to wait and
consider the validity and need of this proposal after SWRCB has
finished its review.
Should the committee feel that there is merit in considering the
educational benefit of allowing some advanced treated purified
water to be bottled, the committee may wish to amend the bill to
authorize the SWRCB to allow for some limited amount of bottling
strictly for educational purposes if it deems it safe and
appropriate after the completion and review of the feasibility
report.
Related/Prior Legislation
SB 322 (Hueso, Chapter 637, Statutes of 2013). This bill adds
additional requirements to the investigation and expert panel
requirements in SB 918 (Pavley, Chapter 700, Statutes of 2010).
SB 918 (Pavley, Chapter 700, Statutes of 2010). This bill requires
DPH (the responsibility for recycled water has since been shifted to
the SWRCB) to adopt uniform water recycling criteria for indirect
potable water reuse for groundwater recharge by December 31, 2013;
to develop and adopt uniform water recycling criteria for surface
water augmentation by December 31, 2016; and, to investigate and
report on the feasibility of developing uniform water recycling
criteria for direct potable reuse.
AB 2022 (Gordon) Page 11 of ?
AB 1100 (Duval, 2009). This bill was very similar to AB 2022, as
introduced, and would have allowed the bottling of potable reuse
demonstration water, as defined, to be distributed, free of charge,
for educational purposes or to promote water recycling. AB 1100
passed out the Assembly Environmental Safety Committee on a 7-0
vote, but subsequently failed passage in the Senate Environmental
Quality Committee.
SOURCE: Orange County Sanitation District & Orange County
Water District
WateReuse California
SUPPORT:
Association of California Water Agencies
CalDesal
California Association of Sanitation Agencies
California Coastal Protection Network
California Coastkeeper Alliance
California Groundwater Coalition
California Municipal Utilities Association
California Special Districts Association
City of San Diego
Costa Mesa Sanitary District
Desal Response Group
Eastern Municipal Water District
Environmental Water Caucus
Inland Empire Coastkeeper
Irvine Ranch Water District
Midway City Sanitation District
Orange County Coastkeeper
Residents for Responsible Desalination
San Diego County Water Authority
Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper
Santa Clara Valley Water District
Sierra Club Angeles Chapter
Sierra Club California
Southern California Watershed Alliance
Surfrider Foundation
Sustainable Silicon Valley
AB 2022 (Gordon) Page 12 of ?
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
OPPOSITION:
None received
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