SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today signed a package of
bills to help expand access to clean drinking water in California.
The Governor signed the following bills today:
• AB 21 by Assemblymember Luis Alejo (D-Salinas) – Creates the Safe
Drinking Water Small Community Emergency Grant Fund which would be
administered by the Department of Public Health.
• AB 30 by Assemblymember Henry T. Perea (D-Fresno) – Removes the sunset
date for the Small Community Grant Fund, which provides grants to small
communities for the construction of wastewater collection, treatment,
or disposal projects.
• AB 115 by Assemblymember Henry T. Perea (D-Fresno) – Authorizes the
eligibility of multi-agency Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund
applications or applications submitted by a legal entity on behalf of a
community, as specified.
• AB 118 by the Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials –
Declares certain water systems serving a severely disadvantaged
community as eligible for a grant instead of a loan from the Safe
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
• AB 120 by the Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials –
Allows school districts to apply for reimbursement from the School
Districts Account within the Underground Storage Tank Clean-up Fund by
adjusting the underground storage tank permit requirements.
• AB 240 by Assemblymember Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) – Requires mutual
water companies to comply with open meeting, public record, and budget
requirements and allows them to impose liens to collect unpaid charges.
Allows the Water Replenishment District of Southern California to
receive specified Department of Public Health grants to improve drinking
water infrastructure in communities served by mutual water companies in
the City of Maywood. A signing message can be found here.
• AB 426 by Assemblymember Rudy Salas (D-Bakersfield) – Allows the State
Water Resources Control Board to approve a water transfer involving any
water right determined through a statutory adjudication by eliminating
the requirement that only those decreed after January 1, 1981 are
eligible.
• AB 803 by Assemblymember Jimmy Gomez (D-Northeast Los Angeles) –
Modifies the State Water Resources Control Board and Regional Water
Quality Control Boards regulation of recycled water.
• AB 850 by Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian (D-Sherman Oaks) – Authorizes
joint powers authorities to issue rate reduction bonds to finance
publicly owned utility projects until December 31, 2020. The bonds
would be secured by utility project property and repaid through a
separate utility project charge imposed on the utility customers' bills.
• SB 322 by Senator Ben Hueso (D-San Diego) – Requires by December 31,
2016, the Department of Public Health in consultation with the State
Water Resources Control Board, to investigate the feasibility of
developing uniform water recycling criteria for direct potable reuse, to
provide a final report on that investigation to the Legislature no
later than December 31, 2016; and requires the Department to complete
the public review draft of its report by September 1, 2016. A signing
message can be found here.
• SB 620 by Senator Roderick D. Wright (D-Los Angeles) – Amends state
laws governing water replenishment districts’ annual budget reserves and
the penalties a water replenishment district can impose on
water-producing facility operators.
• SB 753 by Senator Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) – Provides the
Central Valley Flood Protection Board, with new and clarified
authorities for addressing unauthorized and unforthcoming structures
built in or on levees or other areas of the flood control system which
are under the jurisdiction of the Board.
• SB 763 by Senator Jean Fuller (R-Bakersfield) – Extends the sunset
date on the Replacing, Removing, and Upgrading Tanks (RUST) Program,
changes the interest rate on RUST loans, reduces the share of funds that
may be used for RUST grants, and transfers $8 million from the
Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Fund to the Petroleum Underground
Storage Tank Financing Account to finance RUST loans and grants.
