Toxic tap water: California needs $4.6 billion to fix failing infrastructure

Apr. 14—A new state analysis estimates a $4.6 billion funding gap for water system infrastructure needed to ensure Californians have access to safe and affordable drinking water.

The State Water Resources Control Board this month released the first-ever drinking water needs assessment, showing that approximately 620 public water systems and 80,000 domestic wells are at-risk of failing to provide a sufficient amount of drinking water that meets basic health standards.

The highest concentrations of at-risk systems are in schools and communities in the San Joaquin Valley, Los Angeles Basin and the Central Coast, according to the principal investigator on the project, Greg Pierce of UCLA.

Kings County has the highest proportion of troubled water systems, with 75% at risk. Modoc and San Francisco counties have the lowest, with no systems at risk.

Water Board Chair E. Joaquin Esquivel said some community water systems are just one drought or pump failure or contaminant from serving unsafe water to customers.

"Aging infrastructure, climate change, droughts, floods, economic downturns, and emerging contaminants of concern will continue to stress our water systems," Esquivel said in a prepared statement.

Infrastructure already failing, funding needed

As of April 13, as many as 331 other water systems are already failing because the water source contains high levels of toxic contaminants, such as arsenic, nitrate, or a remnant of pesticides like 123-TCP.

Most of those troubled systems serve fewer than 500 connections, meaning they are often located in rural, unincorporated areas of the state. (See the current list of failing water systems at waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/hr2w/).

Work is under way to bring those systems into compliance, in part, as a result of funding from the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience Program, which earmarks $130 million annually through 2030.

"We want these systems to return to compliance, and to plug the pipeline of failing systems, but to do so will require sustained investment in water systems suffering from decades of accumulated need," Esquivel said.

Authors of the needs assessment said additional state and federal funding is needed for long-term capital improvements to prevent more system failure; Currently, about 45 systems are added to the list of failing water systems every year, according to the State Water Board.

President Joe Biden's administration recently announced a $2 trillion infrastructure initiative that could help.

Researchers used a combination of 19 metrics measuring water quality, affordability and accessibility to identify which systems are in trouble, due to increasing levels of contaminants or limited and dwindling water supplies.

While investigators did consider whether the water system was in a critically overdrafted groundwater basin or faces water shortage due to drought, the potential of a well to fail because of the falling water table was not specifically considered due to a lack of data, Pierce said.

Tribal water systems are also proportionally more at risk. Of 90 systems analyzed, the State Water Board determined 13 are currently failing, and 22 are at-risk, the report says.

Domestic wells at risk of contamination

The April 2021 needs assessment report included the state's first analysis of threats to domestic wells, a common source of drinking water in rural areas, with risks that have historically been difficult to quantify due to a lack of data.

Emily Houlihan with the State Water Board said risks to the quality of water from domestic wells was analyzed by modeling, using water quality data from wells tested within a mile radius. That data set was used to create an interactive Aquifer Risk Map.

Affordability is a factor for accessibility to drinking water in parts of the state, primarily in small rural areas where the costs of water treatment are covered by the bills paid by fewer customers. The needs assessment considers household affordability, community affordability and the financial capacity of the water system.

Solution to the water crisis: consolidation

The costs associated with maintaining or improving the state's drinking water infrastructure were estimated by analyzing potential solutions. Consolidating water systems is considered the most practical solution for most troubled systems.

That can include extending a water line from a safe and affordable water system to residents on a domestic wells, or, expanding water service from a community system to a nearby neighborhood with failing infrastructure. The needs assessment included an analysis of where consolidation would be feasible.

Michael Claiborne, a policy analyst with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, said the report provides critical information in the work to develop policies to bring clean, safe and affordable drinking water to communities, and to maintain the systems.

He said Senate Bill 222 and Senate Bill 223 are critical in their aim to make water more affordable by limiting water shutoffs and helping people pay high water bills.

Claiborne said it is encouraging to see the State Water Board think more creatively about fixing systems before they fail, so the state doesn't have to fund expensive emergency solutions like delivering bottled water to an impacted community for several months, or in some cases, years.

The needs assessment was the result of 2018 legislation that granted $3.1 million to study risks to drinking water, a law which Claiborne said was a "consolation prize" to San Joaquin Valley residents who had supported the SAFER program, which passed in 2019.

The needs assessment will be regularly updated with new and updated data.

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