Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.

Existing law, the California Safe Drinking Water Act, requires the State Department of Public Health to administer provisions relating to the regulation of drinking water to protect public health, including, but not limited to, conducting research, studies, and demonstration programs relating to the provision of a dependable, safe supply of drinking water, enforcing the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, adoption of enforcement regulations, and conducting studies and investigations to assess the quality of water in domestic water supplies. Existing law establishes the Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, continuously appropriated to the department for the provision of grants and revolving fund loans to provide for the design and construction of projects for public water systems that will enable suppliers to meet safe drinking water standards. The department may establish specified separate accounts or subaccounts within the fund. This bill would allow the department to establish a wellhead protection account within the fund, as specified. Under existing law, the funding for grants for the planning and preliminary engineering studies, and design and construction of a single project is set at a maximum of $1,000,000. This bill would revise this maximum so that the maximum grant amount for each participating public water system's share of the costs of the planning, engineering studies, environmental documentation, and design of a single project would be $500,000 and the maximum grant to each participating public water system for its share of the costs of the construction would be $3,000,000, unless the department has made specified findings, in which case the maximum amount of a construction grant would be $10,000,000. Existing law requires the department to establish a priority list of proposed projects, including consideration of whether the applicant has sought other funds when providing funding for a project to upgrade an existing system to accommodate a reasonable amount of growth. Existing law defines "reasonable amount of growth," in part, to mean an increase in growth not to exceed 10% of the design capacity needed, based on peak flow, to serve the water demand in existence at the time the plans and specifications are approved by the department. This bill would include fire flow as part of the water demand in the definition of reasonable amount of growth.