California recognizes the human right to water, the principle that “every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes.”
However, there are 386 failing water systems in California. Tulare County has 33 of them, the California State Water Resources Control Board.
In 2019, state water resources board established the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) program to provide sustainable safe drinking water to disadvantaged communities.
Since then, the number of failing water systems in the state has been about the same, a statistic that can be deceptive, according to Chad Fischer, SAFER section supervising engineer for the water board’s Division of Drinking Water.
“What we've seen, at least over the last five years, is that the number of failing systems remains fairly consistent, which is a little bit disconcerting, but it's not that no problems are being solved,” Fischer said. “It’s that we’re solving problems for communities, but almost as fast as we can solve those problems, new problems come up for other communities.”
Many Californians have already benefitted from the SAFER program. Since 2019, the number of those without clean drinking water has declined by 43%.
“There has been significant progress, especially if you're one of those 700,000 people that couldn’t drink the water out of their tap five years ago and now can,” Fischer said.
Legislation passed last year changed what it means to be a failing water system. This resulted in an increase in the number of water systems considered to be failing, but Fischer supports the new guidelines.
“We want to be more inclusive to try to address more systems that are failing, or likely to fail, so we to try to increasingly take a proactive stance as far as drinking water solutions go,” he said, and he disagreed with the impression that the state’s efforts were only maintaining the status quo.
“A lot of momentum is being built around these systems and these projects over time,” Fischer said, predicting a significant reduction in the total number of failing systems over the next several years.
“These groups that are on the failing list are those ones that are specifically targeted by the SAFER program,” said Dimitri Stanich, SWRCB public information officer. “The inventory is updated every year to assess progress and define why it is that these systems are failing so that we can start addressing it.”
Tulare County's contamination issues
A lot of the water problems in Tulare County are the result of being an agricultural area, Stanich said.
“Those systems that are outside of an established water system are dealing with a lot of the issues typical of the SAFER program’s failing systems,” he said. “A lot of them are dealing with the contamination issues, aging infrastructure, decades of disenfranchisement, and the lack of investment in the water system, so there are a large number of the failing systems in the agricultural areas of the Central Valley."
Tulare County does have a lot of programs and projects that the water board is focusing on, Stanich said.
Many of the county's small agricultural communities were established because of farming. Residential areas were then formed, but before water infrastructure was created, agricultural groups would dig wells and create a system to distribute the water, according to Stanich.
Over time, those communities haven't had the resources to maintain that system so the infrastructure is failing, the water table is falling, and drought and climate change are diminishing the water that is going into the area, he added.
“Tulare County and the Central Valley are really the hub of a lot of the issues that the state of California is facing as a whole, but they are more exposed to these vicissitudes because they are fractionalized, and each of these groups is trying to repair a system on their own,” Stanich said.
Failing water systems
The majority of failing systems are categorized by contamination, Fischer said. The main source of contamination is nitrate, which comes from fertilizer and “some animal agriculture,” as well as from failing septic systems.
“We see a lot of arsenic in California and that's a naturally occurring contaminant,” he added. “It's a part of the geological formations from where the well is pulling ground water.”
Although a system may fail, it can still deliver safe water for its customers to drink. There are multiple reasons for a system to be categorized as failing and still be able to deliver safe drinking water to its customers.
"It's a nuanced definition that is more than just contaminated water," Stanich said.
Some failures are the result of affordability. When the amount of money required to operate a water system results in water bills too expensive for its customers to afford, the system is classified as failing. Affordable water is considered to be about 2% of a customer’s income, according to Fischer.
“Ten percent of somebody’s income is unreasonable,” he said.
Affordability is most often the result of the size of a water system. The larger the system, the more affordable its water rates.
“If you look statewide, customers (in small water systems) pay $32 more a month than somebody who’s served by a large utility," Fischer said, adding that larger systems are also better protected against problems, such as failing wells.
The DDW also has a category that rates the management of water systems, assessing their leadership’s ability to serve the water needs of their community.
“Do they have the day-to-day expertise to run the water systems, to turn the valves appropriately, to take to the appropriate samples, to collect the appropriate water rates, to pay their bills, etc., etc.?” Fischer said, noting that many small water systems are run by volunteers.
“I say ‘volunteers’ because many times they have another job, maybe as a teacher or running a store, but they're not water industry professionals,” he said. “It's not their full-time job to run any water system.”
Dealing with failing water systems
There are state and federal regulations around a water system delivering safe drinking water to the public. If a water system of any size is in violation of those regulations, they’ll receive enforcement and they are required to remedy the situation, Fischer said.
When a system is failing, they will receive a notification from the water board that a sample has indicated that it doesn't meet the required standards. The water board can't dictate how the system is fixed.
“We tell them that you failed and you must fix it, but we can't tell them how to fix it," Stanich said. "It would be up to them figure out what equipment they need, what process needs to be addressed, and how to fix it.”
The state does have the authority to penalize failing water systems.
“It's an authority that we use very judiciously,” Fischer said. “We've accomplished 142 consolidations since SAFER started, and all but a handful of those were achieved voluntarily.”
Working with the owners of failing water systems, along with residents, leaders in the community, and sometimes NGOs (non-governmental organizations) can help develop a partnership to understand what works best for each unique community.
The best solution is consolidation
Consolidation is when a small water system hooks up to and becomes part of a larger system.
“That assures redundancy of sources, expands the customer base, diminishes cost per customer, and increases the resources available to the water system so that they can repair issues as they present themselves,” Stanich said.
“Consolidation sets the community up for sustained success so anytime that is available, that’s an opportunity for the smaller system and the people who live there to connect to a large compliant system,” Fischer said. “When that opportunity exists, we want to make sure that happens.”
On June 25, SWRCB released its fourth Drinking Water Needs Assessment, which included plans to provide $855 million in financial assistance over the next 12 months for projects that address drinking water needs in disadvantaged communities. Water systems in those communities have their annual opportunity to apply for grants to address their water issues.
This year, the SAFER program grants will prioritize water systems that consistently fail to provide safe drinking water, offering the possibility of consolidation, expedited planning, and technical assistance. Grant awards will be based on data that evaluates the quality of water systems and domestic wells in the state.
“A central principle of the SAFER program is to let the data guide the work," said SWRCB Chair Joaquin Esquivel in the press release announcing the grants. “Before 2019, we didn’t even know how many people were served by failing water systems in California. Over the past five years, we’ve built a foundation of data and analysis through our needs assessments that empower communities with information about drinking water issues, and also guide how we target our funding and regulatory work so it has the most impact.”
The goal of the water board, according to Stanich, is to ensure there is safe, reliable and adequate amounts of drinking water to meet the human right to water.
“All of our initiatives strive to do that as economically as possible with the resources that we have and as expediently as possible," he said.
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