Existing law, the California Safe Drinking Water Act, requires the State Water Resources Control Board 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, adopting implementing regulations, and conducting studies and investigations to assess the quality of water in private domestic water supplies. The act authorizes the state board to delegate, through a local primacy delegation agreement, primary responsibility for the act’s administration and enforcement within a county to a local health officer, as specified. The act requires that a local primacy delegation remain in effect until specified conditions occur. The act requires the state board to provide the local primacy agency, to the extent funds are available from the Safe Drinking Water Account, with an annual drinking water surveillance program grant to cover the costs of conducting inspection, monitoring, surveillance, and water quality evaluation activities specified in the local primacy agreement. The act requires the state board to adopt a schedule of fees and requires a public water system under the jurisdiction of a local primacy agency to pay these fees to the local primacy agency in lieu of the state board. Existing law makes it a crime for any person to knowingly commit certain acts, including making a false statement or representation in any record submitted, maintained, or used for the purposes of compliance with the act, possessing a record required to be maintained by the act that has been altered or concealed, and destroying, altering, or concealing any record required to be maintained by the act.

This bill would include enforcement costs as costs covered by an annual drinking water surveillance program grant. The bill would authorize any local primacy agency, with approval of the state board, to elect to participate in a funding stabilization program effective for the 2020–21 fiscal year and fiscal years thereafter, as specified. The bill would require the state board, during any fiscal year for which a local primacy agency participates in the funding stabilization program, to establish and collect all fees payable by public water systems for the local primacy agency activities and to provide funding to the local primacy agency each year in accordance with an annual workscope, prepared as prescribed by the local primacy agency that is submitted to and approved by the state board. The bill would prohibit a participating local primacy agency from charging a public water system any fee in addition to the fees established and collected by the funding stabilization program for the activities in the local primacy agency and would require all fines and penalties collected by such a local primacy agency for the local primacy agency’s activities to be remitted to the state board for deposit in the Safe Drinking Water account. The bill would require a participating local primacy agency to establish and maintain accurate accounting records of all costs it incurs and periodically to make these records available to the state board. By requiring new records for the purpose of complying with the act, this bill would expand the scope of a crime and thereby 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.