Water Districts Forced To Merge

The California legislature approved budget language on June 19 enabling the state to force mergers between water providers.

“The legislation would authorize the state Water Resources Control Board to order districts that consistently fail to provide ‘an adequate supply of safe drinking water’ to merge with other districts. A public hearing would be required,” according to Bloomberg.

The provision is a tiny part of the state’s new $167.6 billion budget, which Governor Jerry Brown signed last week, but it sparked major concerns from water agencies. Members of the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) sent nearly 150 letters to lawmakers asking them to scrap the provision.

“Though the consolidation language had been narrowed in scope by the time it appeared in print, ACWA remained opposed along with a coalition of statewide local government organizations,” ACWA said in a statement.

The provision is of particular concern to small water providers, according to KVPR. “A number of small central valley water utilities are facing dried up wells and dirty water due to the drought. Many of the smallest water providers in the valley have just one well and lack the resources or customer base to continue to provide clean water,” the report said.

Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, explained why his organization opposes the language.

“We are more than willing to sit down with members of the legislature to talk about how to provide safe drinking water to disadvantaged communities,” he said, per Bloomberg. “We don’t think it should be dictated by some centralized approach coming from Sacramento.”

Proponents say the measure would help secure the water supply for small communities that are drying up or facing contamination. “The current patchwork of large and small water purveyors is ill-suited to the parched landscape, said Brown’s budget director Michael Cohen,” according to Bloomberg.

“Drought is causing us to have to do all sorts of things that the government hasn’t had to do, and we wanted to give them new tools to make sure that those water districts that are struggling can be absorbed into other districts,” Cohen said, per Bloomberg.

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