Almost 400 suppliers, two-thirds in communities of color, don't meet safety and reliability standards. Fixing them would cost billions.
If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily morning newsletter, How To LA. Every weekday, you'll get fresh, community-driven stories that catch you up with our independent local news.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.
Without more state or federal funding, most of the total — around $13.9 billion — may fall on local communities and well owners, according to the report. That means some of the people least able to afford it will end up paying more for water. Still, about 283, or 42% of 715 systems that were on the list, came off between 2017 through 2023. About 700,000 more people have safe water than in 2019, according to the water board.It “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 auditor said.
Part of the increase is due to inflation, Abhold said. Some is because the latest analysis favors long-term, higher-cost fixes, such as merging struggling water systems with more secure ones nearby. And some is because the analysis now includes water systems and household wells at risk for shortages, rather than just ones grappling with poor water quality.
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