Stopping the Drain on Household Budgets: Addressing Tap Water Mistrust through Affordable Premise Plumbing Investments

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | August 7th, 2019

This report focuses on the issue of tap water mistrust in the City of Los Angeles. While recent research into water quality of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power�

This report focuses on the issue of tap water mistrust in the City of Los Angeles. While recent research into water quality of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) indicates that water at the tap for their customers is safe to drink, the Los Angeles metropolitan region has one of the highest rates of household mistrust in tap water in the nation.

Striving for Equity in Public Investments in Water in California: An Analysis of Prop 1 Implementation

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | August 21st, 2019

 In 2014, California voters approved a $7.5 billion bond measure to fund water quality, supply, and infrastructure improvements. Prop 1 included significant provisions t

 In 2014, California voters approved a $7.5 billion bond measure to fund water quality, supply, and infrastructure improvements. Prop 1 included significant provisions to prioritize investments in disadvantaged communities.  For this report, looking at Prop 1 spending midstream, we analyzed the $2.5 billion that had been assigned to projects as of April 2019 out of $7 billion of the bond funding that has been committed so far through budget appropriations. We analyzed how much of that funding is going to projects benefiting disadvantaged communities and technical assistance efforts to increase the capacity of those communities to secure funds and manage projects. The executive summary of this report with our topline findings and recommendations below also serves as an index to the rest of the detailed report that follows. 

Subsidized or subsidizing? Municipal drinking water service funds in California

Utilities Policy (Elsevier) | September 29th, 2022

In the longstanding debate over efficiency and effectiveness in drinking water provision between public versus privately governed systems, one of the main contention poin

In the longstanding debate over efficiency and effectiveness in drinking water provision between public versus privately governed systems, one of the main contention points is the reasons for different bill levels imposed by city-run as compared to privately owned water systems. In this study, we examine one potential explanation for disparities in bills: whether cities use their general funds to subsidize their drinking water fund operations or vice versa. Either practice goes against “user pays” principles, as pointed out by critics of municipal operation. However, the claims have not been tested empirically at scale. We extract and analyze city water enterprise fund financial data from the California State Controller Cities Raw Data of Financial Transaction Reports to empirically assess the extent to which and reasons why interfund transfers occur in California's 267 municipally owned water utilities. We find very little evidence that substantial interfund transfers, in either direction, occur between water enterprise funds and general funds within California cities, indicating that enterprise fund control measures are generally successful. These findings suggest that with proper regulation, the municipal fund subsidy debate is essentially a distraction from the real reasons why municipal and other water provider rates differ substantially.

Summary of Climate Change Impacts to Water and Sanitation for Frontline Communities in the United States: Water, Sanitation, and Climate Change in the United States Part 1

Pacific Institute | December 6th, 2023

Climate change is among the most urgent, wide-ranging crises we face. It poses significant challenges and is already resulting in severe impacts to drinking water and san

Climate change is among the most urgent, wide-ranging crises we face. It poses significant challenges and is already resulting in severe impacts to drinking water and sanitation access—both for those currently living without access and for communities where forces like drought, flooding, sea-level rise, wildfires, and intensifying storms threaten to degrade or strip basic services from the people. Access to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible, and affordable water and sanitation is essential for human health and wellbeing, as well as economic prosperity—and climate change will inevitably make ensuring all have access more challenging. Without water and sanitation access, people do not have water to drink, cannot clean, shower, or wash their hands, and cannot safely dispose of human waste. They may have to travel long distances to purchase and haul water back to their homes. Without access to water, they also have less ability to cool their homes, protect themselves from wildfires, and work or go to school. An economic assessment by DigDeep found that for every household in the United States without access to water and sanitation, the domestic economy loses $15,800 annually in extra health care costs, time and money spent on bottled water, lost educational or work opportunities, and premature death (DigDeep 2022). (Click here for Part 2)

Tap Water Affordability in Arizona

Arizona State University (ASU) | February 20th, 2025

In this report, the Kyl Center for Water Policy presents a comprehensive set of tap water affordability data for community water systems (CWS) in Arizona. Communities can

In this report, the Kyl Center for Water Policy presents a comprehensive set of tap water affordability data for community water systems (CWS) in Arizona. Communities can use this study to better assess how their current and future charges for water impact low- and median-income households. Water access can be improved when water charges are designed with affordability in mind so that fewer families face the risk of disconnection due to non-payment. On the other hand, most water providers rely on fees to pay for replacing aging infrastructure and water system improvements to ensure reliability.

The case for state-level drinking water affordability programs: Conceptual and empirical evidence from California

Utilities Policy (Elsevier) | April 1st, 2020

Informed by the design of a program in California, we make a three-part argument for why state-level governments might consider implementing direct bill-assistance progra

Informed by the design of a program in California, we make a three-part argument for why state-level governments might consider implementing direct bill-assistance programs for drinking water service to address growing affordability concerns for low-income households. State-level operation of bill-assistance programs represents a departure from the global trend of allowing water utilities to operate bill-assistance programs at their own discretion. We first explain the motivation for enhanced public sector support to help households pay for drinking water service. In state-level contexts such as California, we find that the basic household affordability equation has worsened due to an increase in the numerator of residential retail bills and a stagnation in the denominator of household incomes. We next demonstrate why direct bill assistance to households is necessary even with the presence of other system-level financial support or retail rate structure policies. Finally, we make the case that direct bill-assistance programs are best situated at the state level, due to substantial variation in systems’ capacity and demonstrated willingness to run their own robust affordability programs for vulnerable customers.

The challenge of closing the climate adaptation gap for water supply utilities

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | June 29th, 2024

The Human Right to Water

Pacific Institute | May 1st, 2007

More than a billion people lack access to safe drinking water. Two and a half billion people live without access to adequate sanitation systems necessary to reduce exposu

More than a billion people lack access to safe drinking water. Two and a half billion people live without access to adequate sanitation systems necessary to reduce exposure to water-related diseases. The failure of the international aid community, nations, and local organizations to satisfy these basic human needs has led to substantial, unnecessary, and preventable human suffering. Tens of thousand of people, mostly young children and the elderly, die every day from water-related diseases. In this analysis, Peter Gleick address three critical questions: 1. Is there a human right to water? 2. If there is a human right to water, what is the advantage and implications of acknowledging such a right? 3. What are the obligations of states, regional governments, organizations, and individuals in achieving these rights? […]

The Human Right To Water In Poor Communities Of Color

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | January 19th, 2021

Since the state enacted the Human Right to Water Legislation (AB 685) eight years ago, California has added more regulatory authority and more funding to help small disa

Since the state enacted the Human Right to Water Legislation (AB 685) eight years ago, California has added more regulatory authority and more funding to help small disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged community water systems. The California Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) can order mandatory consolidation to merge failing community systems with another, higher-functioning water system. The State Water Board is authorized to issue an enforcement order to mandate that water systems meet water quality standards. Other recent legislation authorizes the State Water Board to designate an Interim Administrator to manage the system, improve it, or consolidate the water system with another. The newly enacted Safer and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) drinking water program calls for annual appropriation of $130 million dollars for ten years to address the problems of disadvantaged community water systems. This report identifies the 64 community water systems in Los Angeles County serving disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged populations.

The Struggle for Water Justice in California’s San Joaquin Valley: A Focus on Disadvantaged Unincorporated Communities

University of California, Davis (UC Davis) | February 1st, 2018

In California, lack of access to clean, safe, and affordable water is a threat to public health and well-being, and violates the state’s newly codified Human Ri

In California, lack of access to clean, safe, and affordable water is a threat to public health and well-being, and violates the state’s newly codified Human Right to Water (HRTW). In low-income communities located outside city boundaries (otherwise known as disadvantaged unincorporated communities or DUCs), drinking water is often unsafe to drink. In many such localities, drinking water is contaminated by industrial by-products (usually associated with agriculture, oil and gas production, transportation, and manufacturing) and compromised by inadequate wastewater treatment and disposal systems, as well as naturally occurring toxic substances like arsenic and uranium. Many DUC residents in the San Joaquin Valley pay a triple penalty to obtain safe water: they bear the health costs of unsafe drinking water; they purchase that unsafe water at high costs; and they must also purchase “substitute” water—typically expensive bottled water—for drinking and cooking purposes. Lack of access to clean, safe and affordable drinking water has a racial and ethnic component: the vast majority of the valley’s DUC residents are people of color who also face cumulative impacts from environmental contamination brought on by proximity to air pollution, pesticides, toxic facilities and waste disposal. Without city governments to directly represent their interests and provide essential services, residents of these DUCs have been systematically deprived of access to important means of democratic governance (Anderson 2008). California’s San Joaquin Valley is the source of much of the state and the nation’s agricultural wealth. Yet it is also a region where poverty persists amidst prosperity (Taylor and Mar n 1998). Many of the region’s DUC residents hold low-wage and dangerous jobs, and confront severe and cumulative environmental contamination of their air, water, and land (London, Huang, Zagofsky 2011). The well-being of the nearly 350,000 residents living in 450 DUCs throughout San Joaquin Valley is therefore an important environmental health, and social justice issue that demands urgent attention by policy makers, public agencies and advocates. Over the past two decades, community leaders, advocates, and policymakers have pursued a range of strategies to address unsafe drinking water in the valley’s DUCs and elsewhere in California. For example, in 2004, resident advocates won a case against the City of Modesto in 2003 for its systematic exclusion from city services of communities of color living in nearby DUCs (Molina 2014). In 2011, Senate Bill (SB) 244 required cities and counties to address the infrastructure needs of California DUCs in land use and municipal service plans, and in annexation decisions. In 2012, an HRTW policy was passed in response to massive community mobilization. Known as Assembly Bill (AB) 685, and signed by Governor Jerry Brown, it codified that every human being has a right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water to meet basic human needs, and required state agencies to consider this right when establishing policies and regulations. A 2013 report by the Community Equity Initiative (led by PolicyLink, California Rural Legal Assistance Inc., and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation) developed a sophisticated analysis of the conditions of DUCs in the San Joaquin Valley. California Unincorporated: Mapping Disadvantaged Communities in the San Joaquin Valley (Flegal et al. 2013) put DUCs on the map by using a new methodology to identify these communities, and to highlight the need for new policies and funding mechanisms to address the significant challenges they face. This report, and the dedicated work of water justice advocates, have greatly increased public awareness of water inequality in DUCs. This has helped direct new public funding to improve water infrastructure, and encouraged collaborative solutions among interest groups that historically have been in conflict with each other. However, all parties agree that much more needs to be done to understand the complex issues facing DUCs, and to provide their residents with safe and affordable drinking water. Our report analyzes this situation in detail, and offers several recommendations to inform policy and advocacy on how to improve water access to these communities. To do so, we have used maps of DUCs, CWSs, and State Small Water Systems (SSWSs), as well as water quality reports, demographic data, and expert interviews. Together, these sources have helped us highlight gaps in the provision of safe and a ordable drinking water. Our main conclusion is that California’s legislature, regulatory agencies, and water suppliers need to undertake more concerted and well-resourced efforts to ensure that the HRTW is ensured for all of the San Joaquin Valley’s residents.