BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 115
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Senator Jerry Hill, Chair
2013-2014 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 115
AUTHOR: Perea
AMENDED: As Introduced
FISCAL: Yes HEARING DATE: June 12, 2013
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT: Rachel Machi
Wagoner
SUBJECT : SAFE DRINKING WATER STATE REVOLVING FUND
SUMMARY :
Existing law,
1) 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) Establishes the federal Drinking Water State Revolving
Fund (DWSRF), which provides states with a financing
mechanism to ensure safe drinking water to the public.
2)Under the California Safe Drinking Water Act:
a) Requires the State Department of Public Health (DPH)
to administer provisions relating to the regulation of
drinking water to protect public health, including, but
not limited to, conducting research, studies, and
demonstration programs relating to the provision of a
dependable, safe supply of drinking water, enforcing the
federal Safe Drinking Water Act, adopting and enforcing
regulations, and conducting studies and investigations to
assess the quality of water in domestic water supplies.
b) Establishes the State Safe Drinking Water State
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Revolving Fund (SDWSRF), which is continuously
appropriated to the department for the provision of
grants and revolving fund loans to provide for the design
and construction of projects for public water systems
that will enable suppliers to meet safe drinking water
standards. Existing law requires the department to
establish criteria for projects to be eligible for the
grant and loan program, including that a legal entity
exist that has the authority to enter into contracts and
incur debt on behalf of the community to be served and
owns the public water system or has the right to operate
the public water system under a lease with a term of at
least 20 years, unless otherwise authorized by the
department.
This bill expands the eligibility for grants and loans from
the SDWSRF administered by DPH. Specifically, this bill :
1)Allows the submission of multi-agency SDWSRF applications
when at least one of the communities served by the
construction project will meet safe drinking water
standards.
2)Allows SDWSRF money to be used for funding projects to
upgrade existing drinking water systems that will serve
disadvantaged communities which are distinct from the agency
that is requesting the funds.
3)Requires DPH to allow multiple water systems to apply for
funding as a single application for the purpose of
consolidating drinking water systems, or for extending
existing services to households relying on private wells.
4)Requires that to be considered eligible, the consolidated
application includes at least one disadvantaged or severely
disadvantaged community with drinking water violations and
that at least 50% of the proposed project funds will be
directed to that community.
COMMENTS :
1)Purpose of Bill . According to the author, "The bill seeks
to make disadvantaged and severely disadvantaged
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communities, served by public water systems or on private
wells, whose water fails to meet drinking water standards
eligible or more competitive for state funding to improve
drinking water quality and affordability. Additionally, it
seeks to incentivize consolidation of drinking water systems
and extension of drinking water services to improve drinking
water quality and affordability to disadvantaged and
severely disadvantaged communities. Similarly, it
facilitates a joint application for funding from more than
one agency."
The author argues that, "often the best solution of
efficient, reliable and affordable drinking water delivery
to small, disadvantaged communities who rely on contaminated
drinking water is through consolidation with another
district or through extension of services from another
district. It is difficult for small, disadvantaged water
systems to access necessary funding to accomplish such
projects. Communities relying on private wells and without
public water systems are not eligible at all for funding
from the State Revolving Fund. Finally, larger systems that
are eligible and have the technical capacity to access SRF
funds have little - if any - incentive to develop projects
that serve neighboring disadvantaged communities. As a
result, there remains no mechanism to effectively address
the critical drinking water needs of disadvantaged
communities. This bill provides both a mechanism for
disadvantaged communities who rely on contaminated drinking
water to apply in collaboration with an often larger water
system for funding and creates an incentive for larger, more
economically advantaged water systems to apply in
collaboration with and through a proposed project to serve a
disadvantaged community. Administrative avenues have been
exhausted."
2)Prevalence of groundwater contamination in disadvantaged
communities . In 2008, AB 2222 (Caballero), Chapter 670,
Statutes of 2008, required the SWRCB to submit a report to
the Legislature to identify the following: communities that
rely on contaminated groundwater as a primary source of
drinking water, the principal contaminants in groundwater,
and potential solutions and funding sources to clean up
groundwater.
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The resultant SWRCB draft report "Communities that Rely on
Contaminated Groundwater" identified 2,584 community Public
Water Systems (PWS) in California that rely on groundwater
as their primary source of drinking water. Out of those,
682 community PWS were reported to rely on contaminated
groundwater as a primary source of drinking water. The
SWRCB report also compared the list of 682 community PWS
with a list of PWS that had received a drinking water
quality violation within the most recent compliance cycle
(2002-2010). This comparison revealed that a total of 265
community PWS that rely on contaminated groundwater and
serve a little over two million people have received at
least one drinking water quality violation within the last
DPH compliance cycle. According to this report, most of the
community PWS with violations of drinking water standards
are located in the Southern California Inland Empire, the
east side of San Joaquin Valley, the Salinas Valley and the
Santa Maria Valley. The findings from this report and a UC
Davis study suggest that drinking water contamination in
California disproportionally affects small, rural and
low-income communities that depend mostly on groundwater as
their drinking water source.
Communities that rely on contaminated groundwater typically
treat their water before it is delivered and consumed.
However, disadvantaged communities generally get their water
from small PWS that often lack the infrastructure and the
financial resources to remove the contaminants from the
groundwater prior to the water being delivered. By
contrast, communities that receive their water supply from
large PWS are better able to cope with groundwater
contamination. Large PWS have the economic means to absorb
the cost associated with treatment and the technical
capacity to address water contamination.
In addition, approximately two million Californians rely on
groundwater from either a private domestic well or a smaller
groundwater-reliant system that is not regulated by the
state. A large portion of these California residents lack
an assessment of how clean their water is because they are
not required to test the quality of their well water.
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3)The Governor's Drinking Water Stakeholder Group
Recommendations . In June 2012, Governor Brown convened a
Drinking Water Stakeholder Group, comprised of
representatives from, among others, California state and
local agencies, the agricultural community, the
environmental justice community, academia, and other
water-related entities which considered options to address
drinking water threats and the problems of nitrate
contamination.
In August 2012, the Governor's Drinking Water Stakeholder
Group submitted the Final Report to the Governor's Office
which included a series of recommendations for legislative
action. One of the proposed concepts was:
Support and fund project planning to foster local,
sustainable solutions (including, but not limited to, shared
solutions, inter-community planning facilitation,
engineering, legal, financial or managerial analysis,
environmental documentation, and other project development
activities).
4)SWRCB - Recommendations for Addressing Nitrate in
Groundwater . In compliance with the requirements of SB X2 1
(Perata) Chapter 1, Statutes of 2007-08 Second Extraordinary
Session, in February of 2013, SWRCB issued a series of 15
recommendations for addressing nitrate contamination in
groundwater. Among the suggested legislative proposals,
SWRCB recommended providing greater access for regional
drinking water strategies, specifically:
The Legislature should enact legislation to establish a
framework of statutory authorities for CDPH, regional
organizations, and county agencies to have the regulatory
responsibility to assess alternatives for providing safe
drinking water and to develop, design, implement, operate,
and manage these systems for small DACs impacted by nitrate.
5)Related current legislation .
AB 21 (Alejo). Creates the Safe Drinking Water Small
Community Emergency Grant Fund to address contaminated water
in small communities. Authorizes DPH to assess a specified
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annual charge in connection with loans (in lieu of interest)
for certain drinking water projects funded by the SDWSRF.
AB 30 (Perea). Eliminates the sunset on the charge in lieu
of interest provision for the State Water Pollution Control
Revolving Fund.
AB 69 (Perea). Establishes the Nitrate at Risk Area Fund,
to be administered by SWRCB, for developing and implementing
sustainable and affordable solutions for disadvantaged
communities.
AB 118 (ESTM). Authorizes DPH to adopt interim regulations
for the purposes of implementing SDWSRF, and amends other
statutory provisions relating to the drinking water program.
AB 145 (Perea, Rendon). Transfers the state drinking water
program under the California Safe Drinking Water Act,
including the SDWSRF, from DPH to SWRCB. Makes findings
regarding the need for consolidation of programs for safe
drinking water and clean water.
6)Department of Finance . The Department of Finance has a
neutral position on this bill stating that, "although costs
are unknown at this time, the additional workload associated
with processing applications and executing funding
agreements should be minor and absorbable, if not decreased,
because water systems would be encouraged to consolidate
within a single request, rather than applying individually."
7)Amendments needed: strategic fix . AB 145 (Perea, Rendon)
Transfers the state drinking water program under the
California Safe Drinking Water Act, including SDWSRF, from
DPH to SWRCB. If it is the intent of the Legislature to
make such a major change to the drinking water program, then
the committee should amend this legislation to delay
enactment of the provisions of this bill for a period of at
least one year to allow the transfer to take place prior to
making additional changes to the program.
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SOURCE : California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
SUPPORT : Association of California Water
Agencies
California Municipal Utilities
Association
California Special Districts
Association
Clean Water Action
Community Water Center
East Bay Municipal Utility District
Environmental Justice Coalition for Water
PolicyLink
Rural County Representatives of California
Santa Clara Valley Water District
Western Growers Association
OPPOSITION : None on file