BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1263|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 1263
Author: Wieckowski (D) and Pavley (D)
Introduced:2/18/16
Vote: 21
SENATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE: 4-2, 4/6/16
AYES: Wieckowski, Hill, Leno, Pavley
NOES: Gaines, Bates
NO VOTE RECORDED: Jackson
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8
SUBJECT: Public water system: permits
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill requires the State Water Resources Control
Board (SWRCB) to review permit applications for new water
systems and authorizes SWRCB to deny a permit if it is found
that the service area of the public water system can be served
by one or more currently permitted public water systems, as
specified.
ANALYSIS: Existing law, under the California Safe Drinking
Water Act (SDWA):
1)Requires SWRCB to regulate drinking water and enforce the
federal SDWA and other regulations.
2)Requires permits for the operation of public water systems;
permit applications to the SWRCB must include a technical
report.
3)Authorizes the SWRCB, upon determination that an application
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is complete, to make a specified investigation, and, if deemed
necessary, impose permit conditions, requirements for system
improvements, and time schedules to ensure an affordable,
reliable, and adequate supply of water at all times that is
pure, wholesome, and potable.
4)Prohibits a public water system that was not in existence on
January 1, 1998, or changes ownership after that date, from
receiving a permit unless the system demonstrates that the
water supplier possesses adequate financial, managerial, and
technical capability to ensure delivery of pure, wholesome,
and potable drinking water.
5)Allows the SWRCB to delegate primary responsibility for the
administration and enforcement of the SDWA within a county to
a local health officer if certain criteria are met. Existing
law requires that the local primacy agency (LPA) be empowered
with all of the authority granted to the SWRCB over the
specified public water systems.
This bill:
1)Prohibits, commencing January 1, 2017, an application for a
permit for a new public water system from being deemed
complete unless the applicant has submitted a preliminary
technical report to the SWRCB, as specified, and allows the
SWRCB to impose technical, financial, or managerial
requirements on the permit.
2)Prohibits a public water system not in existence on January 1,
1998, or one that experiences subsequent changes in system
ownership or consolidation, from receiving a permit unless the
public water system demonstrates that the water supplier also
possesses adequate water rights to ensure the delivery of
pure, wholesome, and potable drinking water.
3)Authorizes SWRCB to deny the permit if the SWRCB determines
that the service area of the public water system can be served
by one or more currently permitted public water systems.
4)Requires concurrence of SWRCB before a LPA may issue a permit.
Background
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1)History of California Drinking Water Program
California's drinking water program was created in 1915, when
the Bureau of Sanitary Engineering was established by the
State Board of Health. The bureau's primary duty at that time
was to prevent and eliminate water-borne diseases.
In 1974, the federal SDWA was passed to protect public health
by regulating the nation's public drinking water supply, which
requires the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US
EPA) to establish mandatory nationwide drinking water
standards. It also requires water systems to monitor public
water supplies to ensure drinking water standards are met and
report to consumers if the standards are not met.
Two years after the federal act was passed, California adopted
its own SWDA. The state's act has two main goals: to continue
the state's drinking water program, and to be the delegated
authority (referred to as the "primacy") by US EPA for
enforcement of the federal act. And, as required by the
federal act, the state's drinking water program must set
drinking water standards that are at least as stringent as the
US EPA's standards.
In 1989, AB 21 (Sher, Chapter 823, Statutes of 1989) amended
California's SDWA. This law requires the development of a
comprehensive safe drinking water plan, sets forth
requirements for adopting primary drinking water standards,
requires large water systems to identify all reasonable
measures to reduce contaminant levels in their water, and
requires operators of public water systems to notify the
California Department of Health Services (CDHS subsequently
DPH) and the public whenever the system is not in compliance
with drinking water standards.
In 1993, CDHS (subsequently DPH) submitted to the Legislature
the report entitled, "Drinking Water into the 21st Century:
Safe Drinking Water Plan for California" (1993 Plan).
In 1996, the California Legislature enacted SB 1307 (Calderon,
Chapter 755). SB 1307 amended Section 116355 of the Health
and Safety Code to require a periodic update of the original
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Plan.
However, DPH did not release an update of the Safe Drinking
Water Plan and was subsequently sued by California Rural Legal
Assistance in 2009 for failing to ensure safe drinking water
in certain communities, including failing to comply with this
reporting requirement. The suit was settled in 2011 and
included a requirement that DPH complete the Safe Drinking
Water Plan update within three years.
In 2012, the California Legislature passed the Human Right to
Water Law, adding to the Water Code the declaration that it 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."
In April 2013, US EPA sent notice to DPH for noncompliance
with the requirements of the federal SDWA, its implementing
regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Safe Drinking
Water State Revolving Fund (SDWSRF) grant agreements funded by
the US EPA for fiscal years 2009-11.
The letter of noncompliance from the US EPA was the result of
DPH's failure to meet federal SDWA requirements regarding the
administration of SDWSRF. This included not disbursing
federal funds in a timely matter. At one point in 2012, DPH's
drinking water fund had an unspent balance of $455 million,
which was the largest unspent balance of any state in the
United States.
The failing of DPH to effectively administer SDWSRF put in
jeopardy California's federal appropriation for the SDWSRF,
precipitating the discussion to consolidate the administration
of the SDWSRF and the Clean Water SRF, which was then
administered separately by SWRCB.
In March 2014 , the California Environmental Protection Agency
and the Health and Human Services Agency published their
Drinking Water Reorganization and Transition Plan stating that
the Administration had evaluated the governance structure of
the state's drinking water and water quality activities and
concluded that "aligning the state's drinking water and water
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quality programs in an integrated organizational structure
would best position the state to both effectively protect
water quality, while meeting current needs and future demands
on water supplies."
SB 861 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, Chapter 35,
Statutes of 2014) transferred the Drinking Water Program DPH
to SWRCB effective July 1, 2014 creating the new Division of
Drinking Water within SWRCB and made other statutory changes
to create efficiencies and adoption and administration of the
Drinking Water Program.
SWRCB directly enforces the SDWA for all large water systems
(those with 200 or more service connections). For small water
systems (those with less than 200 connections), local health
departments can be delegated to have regulatory authority as
the LPA.
As of January 2014, there were 7,642 public water systems in
California classified into three different categories: 3,015
Community Water Systems serving communities with full-time
residents; 1,489 Non-Transient Non-Community Water Systems
serving the same non-residents at least six months per year
(e.g., schools, places of work, and prisons); and 3,138
Transient Non-Community Water Systems serving non-residents at
least 60 days per (e.g., restaurants & campgrounds).
2)Risks for people dependent on small water systems
When larger systems exceed maximum contaminant levels, those
problems are usually corrected promptly. In contrast, over
time, small water systems, because of their small base of rate
payers, are much less able to remain compliant with state
drinking water standards. This is especially true when water
system users include disadvantaged communities, defined as the
any community where the median household income is below 80
percent of the statewide median household income. This problem
with small water systems experiencing the bulk of violations
extends across water system categories. In addition to the
community systems where residents may have repeated long-term
exposure to contaminants in impure water, many Non-Transient
Non-Community systems include schools, where vulnerable
populations may also get substantial repeated exposure to
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contaminants. In 2014, 68 schools or day-care facilities with
their own water systems served contaminated water to more than
24,000 people.
As reported in a Senate Office of Research report, SWRCB's
Drinking Water Division estimated that in 2014, 472
out-of-compliance drinking water systems served more than
275,000 people.
3)New Public Water Systems
Over the last five years, approximately 100 new public water
systems have been created, including 12 Community (11.7%), 34
Non-Transient Non-Community (33%), and 57 Transient
Non-Community (55.3%) Systems.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified5/3/16)
California League of Conservation Voters
Clean Water Action
Community Water Center
Environment California
Environmental Working Group
Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability
Lutheran Office of Public Policy - California
Sierra Club California
OPPOSITION: (Verified5/3/16)
Association of California Water Agencies
California Building Industry Association
California Business Properties Association
California Chamber of Commerce
California Municipal Utilities Association
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ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: According to the author, SB 1263 will
limit the proliferation of new, unsustainable public water
systems by creating a strengthened review process for new system
applications. Enhanced procedures include submission and
consideration of preliminary technical reports that include
discussions of existing water systems adjacent to the applicant
service area, the feasibility of these adjacent systems
providing water to the service area, proposed sources of
domestic water for the proposed water system, and estimated
costs of development and long-term operations and maintenance of
the proposed system versus costs to rate payers associated with
connecting to an existing system.
The author states that given data from the last five years, it
appears that at least 25 out of 103 new permitted water systems
were geographic adjacency to an existing water systems.
Supporters state that this bill helps strengthen the permitting
process for new drinking water systems to better limit the
proliferation of small, unsustainable systems. Such small
systems sometimes end up without adequate water supply or fall
out of compliance for contaminants and therefore threatening the
health and well-being of the communities that they serve. This
represents a violation of these communities' right to safe,
clean, affordable, and accessible drinking water, as articulated
in AB 685 (Eng, Chapter 524, Statutes of 2012).
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION:The Association of California Water
Agencies (ACWA) states that they support the goal, articulated
in the Brown Administration's Resilient, Affordable, Safe,
Drinking Water Framework for Disadvantaged Communities
(Framework) and embodied in this bill, of limiting the
establishment of new, unsustainable drinking water systems.
However, they object to how this bill allows the SWRCB to deny
permits for systems that meet the required financial,
managerial, and technical capacities if the proposed service
area could be served by one or more currently permitted systems.
ACWA therefore requests that either this provision be eliminated
or amended with language that limits permit denials to cases
where one or more of these capacities are lacking or there are
insufficient water rights to ensure delivery.
The California Building Industry Association argues "Home
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builders prefer to have existing public water systems provide
water service to their customers. The formation of a new public
water system only occurs as a last resort when an existing
public water system opposes a request for annexation or an
extension of service. To the extent that SB 1263 moves in that
direction, we believe it is on the right track.
"However, definite standards should be set so that if a new
water system meets those standards, it may receive a permit. It
is necessary to know at the outset what criteria the permittee
must meet to avoid arbitrary and capricious decision making.
Additionally, at the end of this process, we believe that the
public water system needs to be more strongly encouraged to
annex or extend services to the area proposed to be served by
the new public water system. A denial of a permit for a new
water system represents no incentive or threat to an existing
public water system that cannot be bothered with providing
service to new customers."
Prepared by:Rachel Wagoner / E.Q. / (916) 651-4108
5/4/16 14:58:04
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