For years, Californians regarded access to safe drinking water as a Third World problem.
About 1 million Californians can’t safely drink their tap water.
It’s a disgrace that demands immediate state action.
Gov.
Gavin Newsom proposes taxing water across California to create a dedicated fund to solve the problem.
Water experts estimate the need to be about $150 million a year.
But in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta town of Isleton, just 90 miles from San Jose and 40 miles from Walnut Creek, residents’ tap water contains enough arsenic that it is unsafe to drink.
It’s inevitable that if the state continues draining the Delta to send water south it will eventually pose a serious, long-term threat to the quality of Bay Area residents’ drinking water.
For example, Californians last fall wisely rejected Proposition 3, which would have devoted $500 million of an $8.9 billion water bond package to cleaning up the state’s drinking water.
Monning has yet to re-introduce his legislation this year.