Primary drinking water standards: hexavalent chromium: compliance plan.

The California Safe Drinking Water Act provides for the operation of public water systems and imposes on the State Water Resources Control Board various duties and responsibilities for the regulation and control of drinking water in the State of California. The act requires the state board to adopt primary drinking water standards for contaminants in drinking water based upon specified criteria, and required a primary drinking water standard to be established for hexavalent chromium by January 1, 2004. Existing law authorizes the state board to grant a variance from primary drinking water standards to a public water system. Existing law makes certain violations of the act a crime. This bill would authorize, until January 1, 2020, the state board, at the request of a public water system that prepares and submits a compliance plan to the state board, to grant a period of time to achieve compliance with the primary drinking water standard for hexavalent chromium by approving the compliance plan, as prescribed. This bill would require a public water system to provide specified notice regarding the compliance plan to the persons served by the public water system and the public water system to send written status reports to the state board. This bill would prohibit a public water system from being deemed in violation of the primary drinking water standard for hexavalent chromium while implementing an approved compliance plan or while state board action on its proposed and submitted compliance plan is pending. The bill would authorize the state board to direct revisions to a compliance plan if the board makes certain determinations and would prohibit a public water system from being granted a period of time to achieve compliance under certain circumstances, including if the public water system does not submit a revised compliance plan or the revised compliance plan is disapproved. The bill would authorize the state board to implement, interpret, or make specific these provisions by means of criteria, published on its Internet Web site. To the extent that a public water system, when requesting approval of a compliance plan or submitting a report pursuant to these provisions, would make any false statement or representation, this bill would expand the scope of a crime and impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.