Limiting and disinvesting in California threatens drinking water funding

from Rachel BeckerCalMatters

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Seven years ago, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation to provide safe and affordable drinking water to the state’s most disadvantaged communities.

Last week, Newsom celebrated the program’s achievements.

“Over 1 million people who did not have access to clean, safe drinking water today have access to clean, safe drinking water,” Newsom said in a conference room filled with the leaders of California, amid thunderous applause.

“I’m not saying that to impress you, but to impress real progress. There’s still a lot of work to do.”

But this job can lose critical funding as the Newsom administration overhauls its source: California’s carbon market. Changes in funding priorities and program revenue threaten efforts to bring clean drinking water to California’s schools, homes and communities.

“If that funding goes away,” said Sherry Hunter, who is long battle arsenic leaking into the water supply of the historic town of Allensworth in Tulare County, “Oh my God, I can’t even imagine.”

Climate money for clean water

A critical part of California’s clean water funding is tied to the state’s carbon market, which sets a shrinking cap on greenhouse gas emissions that oil refineries, power plants and manufacturers can meet by buying and trading carbon credits.

Lawmakers are touching on that fund for environmental efforts such as combating unsafe drinking water in rural communities.

In 2019, Newsom signed a law which led to the Safe and Affordable Equity and Sustainability Funding or SAFER Drinking Water Program at the State Water Resources Control Board. The law calls for it to be funded with $130 million a year in carbon market revenues until 2030.

It can be a risky source of funding, subject to the ups and downs of credit auctions. But the law came with a promise: when revenues fell, the state’s general fund would make up the rest.

It’s not the only amount of money California draws on for its safe drinking water efforts, but it’s the most flexible, paying for emergency and other types of assistance that bonds and more restrictive funding cannot.

When Newsom and California lawmakers don’t budget enough to provide bottled water to households and schools with dry or unsafe faucets, this fund covers the cost.

When low-income communities cannot pay for the technical expertise to manage their water systems or compete for grants needed to drill new wells and connect to safer waterthe safe and affordable drinking water fund can help close this gap.

Thousands of households and dozens of schools rely on that money for emergency supplies — like Hope Elementary School in Porterville, where faucets are running with elevated nitrate levels. The pollutant has been linked to cancers, pregnancy complications and a life-threatening condition in babies known as “blue baby syndrome” when consumed in large enough amounts.

More than $83,000 has been allocated from the 2021 fund to supply the school with bottled water and approximately $110,000 for technical assistance as the school district works to connect to safer supplies, according to the water board.

The funding allows school officials to use their budget for classroom work.

“Thank goodness,” said Melanie Matta, the school district’s superintendent and director. About three-quarters of students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, Matta said. “That water can get expensive, can’t it? We’re already running on a pretty tight budget.”

Matta has a message for Newsom: she’d like him to tour her school and witness why this money is so important.

“When you meet our children and walk around our small school community, you will understand exactly why this fight matters and why this funding must be protected,” Matta said in an email. “Safe water is not a gift. It’s a promise. And we need your help to keep that promise.”

‘nothing left’

The cuts began in September when Newsom and lawmakers struck a reauthorization deal the state’s carbon market after weeks of tense and chaotic negotiations – renaming it “ceiling and invest.”

The new laws deprioritized funding legislators promised safe drinking water, clean air, fire resistanceaffordable housing and other programs — shifting its priority behind $1 billion for high-speed rail and $1 billion for lawmakers to push through the budget.

The laws eliminated the 2030 expiration of the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Program. But so do they abandoned the original promise to make up the shortfall in carbon market funding – putting $100 million at risk by 2030, according to forecast of the Ministry of Finance in January.

MP James GallagherRepublican from Chico, called the new priority system “unfortunate” and “inappropriate” on budget subcommittee hearing in March.

“If you ask these communities in the Central Valley, these rural communities, ‘What would you prefer? Would you like safe drinking water flowing from your faucet, or do you want high-speed rail in your community?” he said. “I’m pretty sure I know the answer.

Now climate regulators on the California Air Resources Board – chaired by Newsom appointee Lauren Sanchez — propose a review of the carbon market in ways that could cut revenue in half.

According to legislative analyst Helen Kerstein, the changes may leave no funding for safe drinking water and other third-tier programs as soon as fiscal year 2027-28, although, Kerstein added, projections are uncertain.

Sanchezwho was Newsom’s top climate adviser before heading the air board,

defend proposed changes in Senate Oversight Hearing last week.

“Do you believe the Legislature intends to eliminate funding for affordable housing, transit, drinking water, wildfire prevention and clean air programs with the reauthorization?” Senator Eloise Gomez ReyesSan Bernardino Democrat and chairman of a Senate budget subcommittee, asked Sanchez.

Sanchez said the staff proposal does not specifically call for those programs to be suspended.

“Let me stop you for a moment. That’s going to be the effect,” Reyes said. “There’s nothing left … and these are the most important programs that have served the community.”

Newsom deflected, pointing at the Legislature.

“Any suggestion that California is ‘selling’ clean drinking water ignores both the current budget proposal and the Legislature’s ongoing role in funding these priorities,” Martinez said in an emailed statement. Martinez hinted at, but did not specify, what is coming in Newsom’s May budget revision on Thursday.

“Many of them were abandoned”

roughly 613,000 people still rely on water systems that do not meet state requirements for safe and reliable drinking water. Regulators at the state water board believe another 661 water systems serving nearly 2 million people are “at risk” of failure.

Still, nearly a million more people have safe drinking water than in 2019 — which state water officials attribute to the Safe Drinking Water Program and its unique, flexible pot of money.

“When we relied on the community to spend their own time and money to prepare, a lot of them were left behind,” said Darin Polhemus, who heads the state water board’s drinking water division. “The Safe Drinking Water Fund has enabled us to equip communities to do long-term projects more quickly.”

The program, which draws on other state and federal funding sources, has awarded more than $1.8 billion in grants to disadvantaged communities. It has helped about 320 water systems serving 3.3 million people off the list of failed stateseven when other at-risk providers come across it.

The Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund has also helped pay for emergency repairs, technical assistance, bottled water supplies and even some construction costs in communities of San Bernardino to Tulare, Monterey and Sutter counties – all grappling with aging and polluted water systems.

“We couldn’t do it without them,” said Sherry Hunter at Allensworth, who started work of a new well and storage tank in January to bring clean water to a city that has struggled with arsenic and other water problems for more than a century.

“There are many other smaller disadvantaged communities that depend on them as well,” Hunter said.

The expenses to fix those water systems and household wells could reach billions of dollars in the coming years, according to a 2024 water board analysis. And Polhemus said the challenge will grow — even as funding shrinks — as water suppliers face new limits on pollutants such as hexavalent chromium.

“If we’ve started and committed to a project, we have a funding pool to see it through,” Polhemus said. “It’s just that we won’t be starting any new projects.”

Federal money is also running out. A Biden-era funding increase ends this year, reducing another, more restrictive fund for drinking water infrastructure projects from hundreds of millions of dollars to tens of millions, according to federal and water board data. Congressional target brands can eat what’s left.

Tammy McVeigh, director of emergency services for the nonprofit Self-Help Enterprises, which connects rural communities with affordable housing and safe drinking water, is alarmed.

Its program provides bottled water to more than 3,000 households in the San Joaquin Valley and transports water to refill storage tanks for about 700 others. Her team helps replace domestic wells and tests the water in them. And it relies on government funding.

Seeing the potential cuts, she said, “it definitely made our mouths drop a little bit.”

Polhemus said he understands communities are nervous.

“We’re going to work with the funds we’ve been given to continue the program as best we can because we know the need is still there,” he said. “The question of how much of it exists is, of course, out of our hands and into the political arena.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.