BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 115
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 115 (Perea)
As Amended September 6, 2013
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |76-0 |(April 18, |SENATE: |36-0 |(September 10, |
| | |2013) | | |2013) |
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Original Committee Reference: E.S. & T. M.
SUMMARY : Expands the eligibility for planning grants from the
Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (SDWSRF) by allowing
multi-agency grant applications when at least one of the
communities served by the construction project will meet safe
drinking water standards.
The Senate amendments :
1)Limit the authorization for multi-agency grants and loans to
planning grants; and
2)Provide that if legislation transfers the authority for the
California Safe Drinking Water Act from the Department of
Public Health (DPH), the bill's implementation would be
delayed for one year after the effective date of the transfer
of authority.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes, pursuant to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act
(SDWA), the Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (SDWSRF),
which provides states with a financing mechanism to ensure
safe drinking water to the public.
2)Requires DPH, in administering SDWA programs, to fund
improvements and expansions of small community water systems,
and to encourage the consolidation of small community water
systems that serve disadvantaged communities in instances
where consolidation will help the affected agencies and the
state to improve the quality and reliability of water
delivered and reduce the cost of drinking water.
AB 115
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AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill expanded the eligibility
for grants and loans from the SDWSRF by allowing consolidated
applications. This bill permitted multiple water systems to
apply for funding in a single application and allowed a single
agency to apply for funds to treat water systems outside of
their jurisdiction.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, this bill would result in unknown cost pressures,
potentially in the millions of dollars, to the SDWSRF for
increased applications for grants.
COMMENTS :
Need for the bill . According to the author, this bill is
designed to address the need for regional solutions for
communities with unsafe drinking water. Specifically, he
states: "Often times within a given region, there are water
systems representing different communities in close proximity to
each other. In these instances the consolidation of a water
system with another nearby system has been an alternative
solution that has worked in areas throughout the state and is
recommended by state agencies (the State Water Resources Control
Board, Nitrate Report) because it helps increase the amount of
residents paying into one treatment facility rather than
residents of multiple communities paying for multiple
facilities. This long-term solution that increases the economy
of scale through consolidation or regionalization is very
difficult and uncertain. Unfortunately under current law, there
is no effective mechanism for two or more communities to apply
together for funding excluding many communities from funding
and/or creating inefficiencies at the local and state level."
Prevalence of groundwater contamination in disadvantaged
communities . In 2008, AB 2222 (Caballero), Chapter 670,Statutes
of 2008, required the State Water Resources Control Board
(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.
The resultant SWRCB draft report, "Communities that Rely on
Contaminated Groundwater", identified 2,584 community Public
AB 115
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Water Systems (PWS) in California that rely on groundwater as
their primarily source of drinking water. 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
the University of California, 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.
Analysis Prepared by : Bob Fredenburg / E.S. & T.M. / (916)
319-3965
FN: 0002776