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- California is set to reduce funding for a program that helps communities deal with contaminated tap water.
- Clean water advocates are urging Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature to restore funding, saying otherwise it will stall progress in bringing solutions to hundreds of thousands of people with unsafe water.
In a neighborhood flanked by grapevines and orange groves on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley, people cannot drink the water from their faucets because it’s contaminated.
Residents in the area north of Porterville, many of them farmworkers, have been discussing a solution, which they expect will require running pipes to connect to the nearby city system.
But the clean water program that has been one of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s major initiatives, bringing solutions like these, is significantly cut in his latest proposed budget.
Residents here are worried this could slow the effort to bring them clean water.
“I hope they help us,” said Paula Fernández, a resident who lugs gallon bottles of water for drinking and cooking. “I hope this gets resolved because we need it.”
Clean water advocacy groups say recent changes to California’s “cap-and-invest” climate program could mean less help in the coming years for hundreds of thousands of people who live with contaminated water.
Newsom’s latest proposed budget estimates that the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund will provide about half of what it provided last year for the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund — $68 million compared with $130 million. The Senate’s latest budget proposal, however, would reinstate full funding.
The Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund is a primary funding source for the state’s SAFER drinking water program, which pays for long-term solutions such as drilling wells or connecting pipes to a nearby community, as well as interim solutions such as paying for deliveries of bottled water and water tanker trucks to fill household tanks.
“If we only get the $68 million, it significantly puts at risk sustained funding for these projects,” said Kelsey Hinton, policy director for the nonprofit Community Water Center. “We are at risk of slowing down or stopping momentum on safe water solutions statewide, and that’s something that we can’t afford to stop.”
Shortly after Newsom took office in 2019, he signed legislation establishing the drinking water fund. It called for $130 million for the program each year for 10 years, and said any revenue shortfall would be offset with other state funds.
But when the Legislature voted last year to extend the state climate program, that provision guaranteeing backup funding wasn’t included.
Some water utilities are run by elected leaders, others aren’t. Research shows utilities with elected managers tend to deliver more affordable drinking water.
Hinton said her group is urging the governor and the Legislature to fully fund the program, whether from the state’s general fund or another source.
“While we are in a tough financial situation, it’s critical that we find a way to backfill this funding,” she said, “because we have to make sure that people have access to the safe water that they need.”
Nearly 1 million Californians have gained access to safe drinking water in their homes and schools since the program started, according to the State Water Resources Control Board. The state has given more than $1.8 billion in grants for drinking water projects in low-income communities.
About 600,000 people still get water from systems that state regulators say are failing to meet safe drinking water standards.
Kristyn Abhold, an official in the state water board’s financial assistance division, said the program has spent about $128 million on construction projects and drilled 103 new wells since July 2025.
“Gov. Newsom has made an unprecedented commitment to safe drinking water for California’s most disadvantaged communities and it’s working,” spokesperson Anthony Martinez said in an email.
Martinez said the governor’s latest proposed budget builds on this record and shows Newsom’s continued commitment to the safe drinking water program.
He said the $68 million is simply the estimated sum coming from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, not a policy choice to reduce funding. That’s because its funding is tied to an auction for a shrinking number of pollution allowances.
In the San Joaquin Valley, 1,800 families rely on state-funded water deliveries to fill household tanks. The list of those waiting for fixes has been growing.
During a recent meeting, Erick Orellana of the advocacy group Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability said getting only $68 million for the program would be a “disappointing number,” and only half of “what was promised to California communities a few years ago.”
“So we’d love to see those commitments followed through on,” he said.
The SAFER drinking water program also receives support from Propositions 1 and 4 bond funds.
If it ends up with less funds this year, existing projects will still move forward with the available money, Hinton said. But as for any new or expanded projects, she said, “all of that will be stalled.”
More than a decade after California passed the Human Right to Water Act, about 1 million residents still lack access to clean, safe, affordable water.
She noted that since 2012 California has declared access to clean, accessible and affordable drinking water a human right.
In Fernández’s neighborhood just north of Porterville, residents stopped drinking water from their wells a few years ago.
Tests revealed the water is contaminated with nitrate, which can come from fertilizer, animal manure or human sewage, and 1,2,3-trichloropropane, a hazardous chemical that was widely used in pesticides years ago.
Fernández, 60, worked for years picking grapes, oranges and other crops. No longer working in the fields, she now takes care of her two grandchildren, pouring water from bottles to cook for them.
The community does not yet have state funding to connect to nearby Porterville’s city water system.
With less money available for the program, Fernández said she and others fear they may have to wait a lot longer.
“It’s an injustice,” she said. “I worry there won’t be enough for them to help us.”
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