To supplement the water bond being debated now in the Legislature, California will need to find billions of dollars annually to improve its water system, according to a new Public Policy Institute of California report.
The report’s authors are generally optimistic about local entities that perform such services as providing drinking water and managing wastewater or stormwater. User fees generate much more money than what comes from the state or federal sources.
Higher water-quality standards present a looming cost, as does the need to treat water when chemicals like arsenic and nitrate seep in — a problem that “will get worse before it gets better, because the accumulated chemicals in the soil are slowly moving through the state’s aquifers,” the report says.
Aging infrastructure and climate change represent pressing issues, the report says, while water agencies are constrained by constitutional restrictions on how much money they can collect from ratepayers. Bond money requires fickle voter approval and the debt service costs compete for General Fund dollars with education and health care.
Despite those funding obstacles, the report estimates that California needs $2 billion to $3 billion annually, breaking that up into five distinct areas: furnishing small communities with safe drinking water; flood protection; stormwater management; nurturing ecosystems and the endangered species that live there; and integrated water management.
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=1086