Agriculture and environmental justice advocates are supporting legislation to create a fund for clean drinking water projects.
The bill, introduced by state senator Bill Monning (D-Carmel), is backed by the unlikely alliance of environmental justice groups and agriculture – two sides that have often sparred over environmental regulations.
Unlike other funding mechanisms such as bonds, the fund could be used to pay for the operation and maintenance of water treatment plants, and not just for their construction.
Advocates for the bill have called it the missing link needed to close the gap on the state’s drinking water crisis where over 1 million Californians don’t have access to safe drinking water, with small, rural communities in the San Joaquin Valley particularly hard-hit.
“It’s a drinking water crisis that is brought about in large part because there is a gap in the funding regime in terms of how we fund safe drinking water,” says Jonathan Nelson of Community Water Center, another group supporting the bill.
“We have funding to do things like build a treatment plant for those that need it, but there is no funding to be able to operate it and maintain it, which means those communities that typically need drinking water treatment the most, often are the hardest pressed to afford it or simply can’t afford it at all.” He noted there are also an estimated 2 million people in the state who either rely on private wells or very small water systems that are not regulated closely or at all.
“We need safe, clean water, but we also need assistance.” She says some community members, especially those with children, are struggling to pay new water rates.
Devil Is in the Details On the fourth floor of the Capitol building, dozens of SB 623 supporters who had previously gathered on the steps outside for a brief rally took turns filing into the packed hearing room to officially voice their support for SB 623 in front of the Assembly’s Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee.
But as Monning, the bill’s author, told the committee when it was time for its members to ask questions about the legislation, “The devil is in the details.” While the vision of the bill – to provide a fund for safe drinking water – is broadly supported, some key details of how that happens are not.
The group and its allies also contend that the fund should not be used for capital improvements like constructing treatment plants, which already have existing funding sources.