Cost of bringing clean drinking water to California communities estimated at $11.5 billion

California has made significant progress helping small communities address problems of contaminated drinking water, but the costs of bringing safe tap water to hundreds of communities over the next five years will run more than $11.5 billion, according to a new state estimate.

In a newly released report, the staff of the State Water Resources Control Board estimated that at the start of this year approximately 913,000 Californians depended on public water systems that are failing to comply with drinking water regulations, while an additional 1.5 million people depended on water systems that are determined to be “at-risk.”

Officials carried out the assessment nearly five years after the state established the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity that under the program, the state water board has since 2019 given more than $831 million in grants for drinking water projects in disadvantaged communities, and that about 250 failing water systems serving more than 2 million people have come into compliance with drinking water standards.