More than 1 million Californians are affected by unsafe or
unreliable sources of water for cooking, drinking and bathing.
They can lose access to water supplies when their wells run dry,
especially during drought when groundwater is relied on more
heavily and the water table drops. Employment disruptions caused
by the COVID-19 pandemic can impair their ability to pay water
bills on time. Communities of color are most often burdened by
these challenges.
Below you’ll find the latest news articles raising
awareness on efforts to seek water equity written by the staff at
the Water Education Foundation and other organizations that were
posted in our Aquafornia news aggregate.
It wasn’t the appearance of a flashy, high-ranking California
official at the podium, or the review of 35 years of efforts to
protect the Bay’s watershed at the beginning of the May 2024
State of the Estuary conference that made me sit up in my red
velvet auditorium seat. It was an awards ceremony for
outstanding projects. … There to receive each small plaque
from Friends of the Estuary were long lines of “collaborators.”
As they snaked on and off the stage for a photo and handshake,
the line of folk who had helped complete this or that project —
from mapping the range of the salt marsh harvest mouse to
involving students and teachers in watershed restoration — got
longer and longer. … Though the region’s ability to
collaborate with other agencies and scientists and managers to
protect and restore the San Francisco Estuary has grown
exponentially, over the years, these same folks are now
tangling with a new challenge: how to make this work relevant
to the Bay Area’s most “underserved” communities.
Almost 400 water systems serving nearly a million Californians
don’t meet state requirements for safe and reliable drinking
water supplies — and fixing them would cost billions of
dollars. More than two-thirds of these failing water systems
serve communities of color, and more than half are in places
struggling with poverty and pollution, according to an annual
assessment released today by the State Water Resources Control
Board. These water systems failed to provide water “which
is at all times pure, wholesome, and potable,” as required.
Some violated drinking water standards for chemicals, bacteria,
taste or odor. Others rely on bottled water, or have failed to
meet treatment, monitoring or other requirements. … The price
tag for ensuring safe, affordable and accessible water supplies
for all Californians is staggering — an estimated $16 billion
over the next five years — as the state grapples with a
multibillion-dollar deficit.
The vast territory known as the Owens Valley was home for
centuries to Native Americans who lived along its rivers and
creeks fed by snowmelt that cascaded down the eastern slopes of
the Sierra Nevada. Then came European settlers, and over time,
tribe members lost access to nearly all of that land.
Eventually, the water was lost, too: In the early 20th century,
the developers of Los Angeles famously built a 226-mile-long
aqueduct from Owens Lake to the city. … Owens Lake is now a
patchwork of saline pools covered in pink crystals and wetlands
studded with gravel mounds designed to catch dust. And today,
the four recognized tribes in the area have less than 2,000
acres of reservation land, estimated Teri Red Owl, a local
Native American leader. But things are changing, tribal members
say. They have recently reclaimed corners of the valley, buoyed
by growing momentum across the country to return land to
Indigenous stewardship, also known as the “Land Back”
movement.
Under a shaded refuge adjacent to a still pond in the Central
Valley, dozens of California State Parks officials and
nonprofit leaders assembled Wednesday to laud the first state
park to open in a decade. Among the beaming faces was
Lilia Lomeli-Gil, a community leader representing the tiny town
5 miles away that, thanks to the park’s debut, is being
transformed. If Merced is the “Gateway to Yosemite,”
then Grayson is the gateway to Dos Rios State Park.
The 1,600-acre property lies within the floodplains outside
Modesto and features the intersection of the San Joaquin and
Tuolumne rivers. The park’s proximity to Grayson
offers the town a sense of renewal. Dos Rios will lure visitors
off Interstate 5 and provide residents with a communal backyard
haven. Efforts to restore the floodplain have already shown
signs of success in protecting Grayson from disaster. The
town owes part of its livelihood to restoring the original
habitat and defending itself from flooding.
More than 20,000 San Joaquin Valley residents could be left
high and dry, literally, by Sacramento politicians intent on
using $17.5 million that had paid for water trucked to their
homes to help fill California’s gaping two-year $56 billion
deficit. A local nonprofit that has been hauling water to those
residents sent a letter recently to Governor Gavin
Newsom and top leaders in the Legislature begging them to
reinstate the money in the ongoing budget negotiations.
“Cutting funding for such a crucial program would have
devastating effects on rural and disadvantaged communities by
immediately cutting them off from their sole source of water
supply, and doing so with no warning,” states the June 11
letter from Self-Help Enterprises, a Visalia-based nonprofit
that helps low-income valley residents with housing and water
needs.
The board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California voted to place General Manager Adel Hagekhalil on
leave Thursday while the agency investigates accusations of
harassment against him by the agency’s chief financial officer.
Chief Financial Officer Katano Kasaine made the allegations in
a confidential letter to the board, which was leaked and
published by Politico. She said Hagekhalil has harassed,
demeaned and sidelined her and created a hostile work
environment. MWD Board Chair Adán Ortega Jr. announced the
decision after a closed-door meeting, saying the board voted to
immediately place Hagekhalil on administrative leave and to
temporarily appoint Deven Upadhyay, an assistant general
manager, as interim general manager.
Some $253 million helped Angelenos pay back utility bills from
March 2020 through December 2022, city officials announced on
Wednesday, June 12. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember
Heather Hutt, state Environmental Protection Agency Secretary
Yana Garcia, Water Resources Control Board Chair Joaquin
Esquivel, and officials with the Los Angeles Department of
Water and Power and L.A. Environment and Sanitation celebrated
the distribution of federal funding at a news conference.
Officials said the aid was automatically applied to about
204,500 DWP customer accounts. The California Water and
Wastewater Arrearage Payment Program was the source of the
funds, administered by the state water board using federal
American Rescue Plan Act funds.
In the Golden State, we pride ourselves on our future-facing
environmental values and our climate leadership. At the same
time, nearly 1 million residents, primarily in disadvantaged
communities, are without access to clean drinking water, and
California cities such as Los Angeles, Long Beach and Fresno
are burdened year after year by some of the dirtiest, most
polluted air in the nation. This glaring duality underscores
the failure of our current legal framework to ensure the
fundamental rights of all Californians to clean air, water and
a healthy environment. It’s time for a change. It’s time for
California to enshrine this right into our state constitution.
The inalienable rights of life, liberty, safety and happiness
guaranteed in the state constitution are under threat by a
climate crisis that negatively impacts the health and
well-being of all Californians. -Written by Terry Tamminen and James Strock, former
secretaries of the California Environmental Protection Agency.
Alan Lloyd, who also contributed to this piece, is also a
former secretary of the California EPA.
The board of the agency that delivers water to nearly half of
Californians will consider firing its top leader over claims of
retaliation, harassment and cultivating a toxic work
environment at a special meeting Thursday morning, according to
an agenda and three people with knowledge.The Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California plans to consider whether
to discipline or dismiss its general manager and CEO, Adel
Hagekhalil, at a Thursday morning board meeting, according to
an agenda posted Tuesday.
Working together to support local Tribal farmers, the
Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Santa Rosa Rancheria
Tachi Yokut Tribe have expedited two water transfers to meet
immediate water supply needs and to address long-term demands
north of the Tulare Lake area. Working with the Tulare Lake
Irrigation District, DWR and the Tachi Yokut Tribe entered into
a contractual agreement to institute both a temporary and
permanent transfer of water resulting in over 600-acre feet of
additional water for the area.
… The Salton Sea region is facing economic pressure to become
a substantial domestic supplier of lithium, placing greater
challenges on lower-income communities that already face
significant disparities – yet contribute so much to the
prosperity and quality-of-life of others. … This year, state
leaders have a chance to place a climate bond on the
November ballot, which would give voters an opportunity to
approve important environmental protections and clean energy
projects. This bond can benefit all areas of the state, while
also providing $400 million to the Salton Sea region and $15
million to establish a conservancy. -Written by Silvia Paz, executive director of
Alianza Coachella Valley, and former chair of California’s
Lithium Valley Commission.
Chemical and manufacturing groups sued the federal government
late Monday over a landmark drinking-water standard that would
require cleanup of so-called forever chemicals linked to cancer
and other health risks. The industry groups said that the
government was exceeding its authority under the Safe Drinking
Water Act by requiring that municipal water systems all but
remove six synthetic chemicals, known by the acronym PFAS, that
are present in the tap water of hundreds of millions of
Americans. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that
the new standard, put in place in April, will prevent thousands
of deaths and reduce tens of thousands of serious
illnesses.
A contentious proposal to amend California’s Constitution to
enshrine environmental rights for all citizens has been delayed
for at least another year after it failed to gain traction
ahead of a looming deadline. ACA 16, also known as the green
amendment, sought to add a line to the state Constitution’s
Declaration of Rights affirming that all people “shall have a
right to clean air and water and a healthy environment.” The
single sentence sounds straightforward enough, but by the start
of this week, the proposal had not yet made it through the
state Assembly or moved into the state Senate. Both houses
would need to pass the proposal by June 27 in order to get it
on voter ballots this fall. … The [Chamber of
Commerce] said compliance costs could lead to economic
impacts for businesses, communities and local governments. …”
Recently, former Panoche Drainage District general manager
Dennis Falaschi pled guilty in federal district court in Fresno
to having conspired to steal millions of gallons of
publicly-owned water from California’s Central Valley Project
(CVP) for private gain. This surreptitious water theft
apparently had been going on for well over two decades before
Falaschi was finally brought to justice.
… Unfortunately, the Falaschi case and conviction are
not isolated incidents. To the contrary, illegal
diversion, use and black market sales of the public’s finite
and precious water supplies have quite likely gone on for
decades, if not centuries.
The city of Bakersfield and California Water Service Co. on
Sunday lifted the do-not-drink, do-not-use advisory issued
Tuesday to 42 commercial customers south of Lake Truxtun after
an oil company reportedly allowed pressurized natural gas and
crude oil into the municipal water system.
Today, Senator Durazo amended Senate Bill 1255, which will
provide an avenue for universal water affordability rate
assistance for public water systems with more than 3,300
connections. As water rates continue to rise three times faster
than inflation, a water affordability program is necessary for
low-income families statewide.
Today, Congresswoman Norma Torres and Congressman David Valadao
– members of the House Appropriations Committee – announced the
introduction of the bipartisan Removing Nitrate and Arsenic in
Drinking Water Act. This bill would amend the Safe Drinking
Water Act to provide grants for nitrate and arsenic reduction,
by providing $15 million for FY25 and every fiscal year
thereafter. The bill also directs the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to take into consideration the needs of
economically disadvantaged populations impacted by drinking
water contamination. The California State Water Resources
Control Board found the Inland Empire to have the highest
levels of contamination of nitrate throughout the state
including 82 sources in San Bernardino, 67 sources in Riverside
County, and 123 sources in Los Angeles County.
Water bubbles up in streets, pooling in neighborhoods for weeks
or months. Homes burn to the ground if firefighters can’t draw
enough water from hydrants. Utility crews struggle to fix
broken pipes while water flows through shut-off valves that
don’t work. … Across the U.S., trillions of gallons of
drinking water are lost every year, especially from decrepit
systems in communities struggling with significant population
loss and industrial decline that leave behind poorer residents,
vacant neighborhoods and too-large water systems that are
difficult to maintain.
The climate-driven shrinking of the
Colorado River is expanding the influence of Native American
tribes over how the river’s flows are divided among cities, farms
and reservations across the Southwest.
The tribes are seeing the value of their largely unused river
water entitlements rise as the Colorado dwindles, and they are
gaining seats they’ve never had at the water bargaining table as
government agencies try to redress a legacy of exclusion.
… A state audit from the California Water Resources Control
Board released last year found that over 920,000 residents
faced an increased risk of illness–including cancer, liver and
kidney problems–due to consuming unsafe drinking water. A
majority of these unsafe water systems are in the Central
Valley. The matter has prompted community leaders to mobilize
residents around water quality as politicians confront
imperfect solutions for the region’s supply. Advocates point
out that impacted areas, including those in Tulare County, tend
to be majority Latino with low median incomes. … This
year’s extreme weather has only worsened the valley’s problems.
The storms that hit California at the start of this year caused
stormwater tainted with farm industry fertilizer, manure and
nitrates to flow into valley aquifers.