Drinking water: consolidation.

Existing law, the California Safe Drinking Water Act, provides for the operation of public water systems and imposes on the State Water Resources Control Board various responsibilities and duties. The act authorizes the state board to order consolidation with a receiving water system where a public water system or a state small water system, serving a disadvantaged community, consistently fails to provide an adequate supply of safe drinking water or where a disadvantaged community is substantially reliant on domestic wells that consistently fail to provide an adequate supply of safe drinking water. This bill would revise those consolidation provisions, including, among other revisions, authorizing the state board to also order consolidation where a water system serving a disadvantaged community is an at-risk water system, as defined, or where a disadvantaged community is substantially reliant on at-risk domestic wells, as defined. This bill would require the state board, before ordering consolidation or extension of service, to consult with any groundwater sustainability agency, as defined, that provides groundwater supply to the affected area. The bill would require the state board to conduct outreach to ratepayers and residents served by an at-risk water system, consider any specified petitions submitted by members of a disadvantaged community served by the at-risk water system, and consider any information provided by the potentially subsumed water system in support of its contention that it is not an at-risk water system before ordering the consolidation of the at-risk water system, as prescribed. The bill would authorize the state board to prioritize consolidation of an at-risk water system that has historically been overburdened by pollution and industrial development or faced other environmental justice hurdles. The bill would require a finding that a disadvantaged community, in whole or in part, is substantially reliant on at-risk domestic wells to be based on specified aquifer maps and inspection or testing of the domestic wells, as provided.