BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1100
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Senator S. Joseph Simitian, Chairman
2009-2010 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 1100
AUTHOR: Duvall
AMENDED: May 5, 2009
FISCAL: Yes HEARING DATE: July 13, 2009
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT: Rachel Machi
Wagoner
SUBJECT : PORTABLE REUSE DEMONSTRATION WATER
SUMMARY :
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)Under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA):
a) Requires the federal Environmental Protection Agency
(US EPA) to set standards for drinking water quality and
oversee the states, localities, and water suppliers who
implement those standards. California has authority over
drinking water, delegated by US EPA.
b) 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
and requires DPH to charge and collect a fee for each
license application.
2)Requires all water-bottlers (regardless of whether located
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in-state, out-of-state, or in a foreign country) and private
source operators to apply annually to obtain a license to
bottle, collect, treat, hold, distribute, haul, vend, or
sell water in California.
3)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 to each customer.
4)Requires DPH to establish uniform statewide recycling
criteria for the various uses of recycled water to assure
protection of public health.
This bill authorizes bottling of potable reuse demonstration
water for educational purposes and to promote water recycling
by:
1)Defining "potable reuse demonstration water" (PRDW) as
secondary effluent from a wastewater treatment facility that
meets specified conditions.
2)Authorizing the operator of a facility producing PRDW to
cause PRDW to be bottled and distributed for educational
purposes and to promote water recycling and exempting such
an operator from existing requirements for bottled water,
except as explicitly required by this bill.
3)Authorizing the distribution of PRDW at no cost for
educational purposes or to promote water recycling, provided
that the PRDW meets or exceeds all federal and state
drinking water standards, all maximum contaminant levels,
and all conditions imposed by regulatory agencies on the
water quality of PRDW.
4)Specifying bottling and labeling requirements for PRDW.
5)Prohibiting a water recycling facility from bottling more
than 1,000 gallons of PRDW in a calendar year.
COMMENTS :
1)Purpose of Bill . According to the author, "California is in
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the midst of a multi-year drought and water crisis. We need
new sources of water to serve our ever-growing needs. It
has been estimated that in Los Angeles County alone, some
2-3 million acre-feet of treated wastewater are discharged
into the ocean annually. This is literally wasted water.
The technology is here-California can make efficient use of
its wastewater. For example, the Ground Water Replenishment
System in Orange County provides the northern part of the
county with approximately 25% of its water needs, just
through recycling. They're also working on expanding. This
approach should be replicated everywhere possible. Allowing
limited bottling of recycled water for educational purposes
will help to battle the misinformation and negative PR that
this crucial water source has dealt with for years."
2)Background . DPH evaluates the treatment, production,
distribution and use of recycled water for public health and
safety. DPH has not approved any disinfected tertiary or
advanced treated recycled water, including PRDW, for direct
drinking. DPH does, however, allow disinfected tertiary or
advanced treated recycled water for "indirect drinking use"
such as recharging domestic water supply aquifers by surface
spreading. Similarly, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency does not authorize the ingestion of disinfected
tertiary or advanced treated recycled water.
In 1996, the California Potable Reuse Committee -- an
18-member joint committee of the Department of Health
Services and Department of Water Resources -- reported that,
before allowing drinking of treated waste water, reliable
water quality monitoring methods and emergency response
systems must be available. Such treatment methods and
response systems have yet to be established.
3)Related legislation . AB 301 (Fuentes) of 2009 requires
applicants for licenses to bottle water in California to
report the volume of the water, the source, and the county
of the source to DPH. DPH must compile this information and
make it available to the public. AB 301 is pending hearing
in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
AB 410 (De La Torre) of 2009 would set a statewide water
recycling target to a total of 1,300,000 acre-feet of water
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per year by the year 2020, and 2,000,000 acre-feet of water
per year by the year 2030. The bill would also require the
Department of Water Resources to assess progress toward
meeting that target every five years, based on information
provided in urban water management plans. AB 410 is set to
be heard in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee July
6, 2009.
AB 2186 (Salas) of 2008 would have 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. AB 2186 was held in
Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee
at the request of the author.
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 Department of Public Health's regulatory
process governing water dispensed from water vending
machines and the labeling requirements for bottled water.
AB 1521 (Salas) of 2007 would have 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. As a condition of
licensure, a water-bottling plant must annually prepare and
submit to the department a consumer confidence report. AB
1521 was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.
SB 1589 (Denham) of 2004 would have 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. AB 1589 was held in the Health
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and Human Services Committee at the request of the author.
AB 83 (Corbett) of 2003 would have transferred the
provisions relating to the licensure and regulation of
persons engaged in the bottled water activities from the
Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law to the California Safe
Drinking Water Act. It would have required specified
information on labeling and in advertising bottled water
products. The bill would have 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. This
bill would have also revised the annual license fee
schedule. AB 83 failed passage on the Senate Floor.
4)What are "educational and promotional" purposes and is it
appropriate for the state to sanction recycled water as
drinking water even for these limited purposes? AB 890
specifies that the water would be distributed, free of
charge for "educational purposes or to promote water
recycling, without complying with the requirements of
Article 12 of the Health and Safety Code" regulating bottle
and vended water. Even in limiting the amount of recycled
water that would be bottled under this bill, this will not
prohibit its distribution as drinking water.
Increasing the amount and usage of recycled water will be
important to addressing California's strained water
supplies; however, it must be used for purposes that do not
present risks to human health. While the bill specifies
that the water must meet state and federal drinking water
standards and all maximum contaminant levels (MCL) as
established by DPH for public drinking water, it does not
and cannot make provisions for standards and MCLs that have
not been adopted as of yet. Current drinking water
standards are developed for natural or pristine source
water, with the assumption that water should not start out
contaminated. Wastewater is contaminated and is refined to
remove certain amounts of contamination. Current standards
were not adopted with that process in mind. Recycled water
could potentially present contamination issues and
challenges that would be the byproduct of secondary effluent
that do not currently exist in present sources of drinking
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water, such as the presence of pharmaceuticals or other
byproducts of human waste.
Additionally, if the assertion of this bill is that recycled
water is as safe as other forms of drinking water, why would
it need to be exempted from the bottle and vended water
statutory requirements? Until the technology is developed
to detect and treat all contaminants and until US EPA and
DPH have adopted applicable drinking water standards for
recycled water to ensure its safety, is it appropriate to
consider recycled water as drinking water at all?
SOURCE : Orange County Water District
SUPPORT : Association of California Water Agencies
California Special Districts Association
Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California
San Diego County Water Authority
Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority
Southern California Water Committee
Western Municipal Water District
OPPOSITION : Clean Water Action