How SF Keeps Drinking Water ‘Pristine’ Amid Statewide Cleanliness Issues
Last year, 385 of California’s water systems — serving 913,000 Californians, about 2% of the state’s population — failed to meet drinking-water standards, meaning they didn’t provide water “which is at all times pure, wholesome, and potable.”
According to the San Fransisco Examiner, “in the state of California, we have over 7,000 water systems and around 3,000 community water systems,” said Andrew Altevogt, deputy director with the State Water Resources Board. “If you compare that to other utility sectors, it’s literally orders of magnitude larger.”
“Most of what we see with failing water systems are issues with small water systems,” said Altevogt, who worked on the Drinking Water Needs Assessment report. “The very small ones are the ones that have the most problems because it’s really hard to run a water system and all the treatment and all the things that need to happen when you don’t have that economy of scale and you don’t have the support for a larger rate base.”
“You just don’t have the money even to have trained and licensed engineers running the system,” Feinstein said. “You don’t have the money to drill the deep wells that access the higher-quality aquifers.”
