More than 920,000 Californians are drinking toxic tap water that could contain arsenic and other hazards due to a slow-acting state water board mired in bureaucracy, according to a new state audit.
Some 370 water systems are failing, and they are mostly located in the state’s Central Valley farming, which has been decimated by a yearslong drought. And while funds are available to fix these problems, a greater majority goes to wealthier counties, says the report, released on Tuesday.
The damning report is titled “State Water Resources Control Board — It Lacks the Urgency Necessary to Ensure That Failing Water Systems Receive Needed Assistance in a Timely Manner.”
“Nearly a million Californians face possible long-term, negative health outcomes — including an increased risk of liver and kidney problems, as well as cancer—because they receive unsafe drinking water from a failing water system,” the audit says. “The State Water Board has funding available to help these failing systems improve the quality of their drinking water. Nonetheless, the board has generally demonstrated a lack of urgency in providing this critical assistance.”
The report outlines numerous deficiencies in the water board’s operations, including hiring contractors to do work that has already been completed, taking years to approve applications for aid, and having yearly increases in the number of failing water systems with no concrete goals on how to fix the problem.
More than 150 communities have been on the “fail” list for more than five years, including a Southern California mobile home park that has received arsenic-tainted water since at least 2012. Residents have reported foamy, smelly water that peeled the skin off children who bathed in it, the audit says.
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The mobile home park has been waiting since 2019 for grants and loans to fix its water system.
The water board said it would cost $10.3 billion to solve the problems over a five-year time period. However, it is $4.5 billion short of accomplishing these goals. Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced that the current state budget has a record-breaking surplus of $98 billion.
As the years drag on for communities that must use expensive bottled water or seek out other suppliers, auditors accused the board of not making “adequate efforts to measure and minimize these delays.”
State Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D) was born in her farming district and has made water her main platform since she was elected in 2018.
Her voice broke as she spoke to the Washington Examiner about how thousands of residents turn on the tap and nothing comes out. Or for those lucky enough to have water, much of it is polluted with toxins. This year, she authored a bill to disband the water board, but it has not received any support and is sitting in committee.
“The audit is everything I pretty much knew, and there’s a lot more it didn’t cover,” she said. “Historically, and to this moment, we struggle to get funds for safe, clean water. I see the health impacts on children. My sister was born with a rare disease, and we have major kidney problems in this area with a lot of people on dialysis.”
Hurtado authored a bill that created the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund in 2019, which comprises 9% of the state’s water allocation funding. Hurtado was disappointed in markups to the bill that doled out the majority of the money to administrative costs.
“I was so angry and frustrated,” she said. “What’s the whole point of making this happen if it’s going to administrative costs? People need wells and infrastructure, and they need it now.”
Part of the problem is a complicated application process that can take a year for the applicant to understand and then several more years for approval. The water board asks for everything from bank account records to reams of nebulous data. This needs to be streamlined, the auditors wrote.
Then, when funds are dispersed, a higher percentage goes to nondisadvantaged groups, even though 67% of the communities needing the greatest assistance are disadvantaged, the audit shows. For example, the disadvantaged received $371 million in low-interest loans, while the advantaged group received $808 million.
The water board responded to the report by defending its actions, saying the COVID-19 pandemic created setbacks. The board also said disadvantaged funding has been increased and some red tape alleviated.
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“The Board acknowledges that there are improvements that can be made, but respectfully requests an adjustment to the inaccurate title of the report. The Board has demonstrated its urgency by making substantial progress in its Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) Program over the past three years to provide safe and affordable drinking water to the many Californians who previously lacked safe water,” the board’s executive director, Eileen Sobeck, wrote.
The auditors responded: “We stand by the report title. Audit standards require that we base our conclusions on sufficient and appropriate evidence.”
