by Adán Ortega Jr.
“Same laws. Same regulations. Wildly different capacity to absorb them.”
I’ve sat in boardrooms where billion-dollar budgets are debated about drinking water. I’ve also sat in cramped community meeting halls where a small water system operator explains — apologetically — why their rates went up again, or, why they have been labeled as “failing” by a state agency, or, both with a consolidation process that’s dragged on for the better part of a decade.
Oftentimes, California enacts new drinking water mandates designed at a scale that works mostly for large urban systems. Those that are occasionally aimed at small water systems, come off as charity.
Large utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power serve over 600,000 homes and businesses and has an entire compliance department. They have in-house engineers, attorneys, and financial analysts. A small non-profit mutual water company serving 100 connections in the Central Valley foothills with the nearest neighboring water system a dozen miles away, may only have a part-time operator and a checking account.
The State sends them the same regulatory bill.
No economies of scale created through smart compliance schedules. No compliance infrastructure shared. Just a mandate and a deadline — and if you can’t meet it, the State’s answer is to label you as “failed” and consolidation as a fix-all.
That’s not public health policy. That’s wrong-sizing because it leaves millions behind.
Who’s actually paying the price — and how our own laws fuel a public perception crisis.
“The way California structures its drinking water laws systematically signals to the public that drinking water from the tap is unsafe, especially for small water systems — even when it isn’t.”
Every violation notice. Every compliance order. Every state-mandated public notification – especially annual “consumer confidence reports.” Written in language that sounds like a public health emergency — because the law requires it regardless of actual risk level.
A small system that misses a paperwork deadline gets the same alarming public notice as one with a genuine contamination event. The public can’t tell the difference.
Think about who we’re actually talking about:
- Farm areas growing California’s food
- Urban port and transportation corridors supporting supply chains
- Forests, watersheds & remote communities where our water comes from
Everyone deserves safe drinking water.
Treating small water systems like charity cases isn’t just wrong. It’s bad policy built on a manufactured crisis.
In California, some small water systems with significant damage in last year’s Eaton Fire were labeled as “failing” by regulators because they provided residents with bottled water in the immediate aftermath. LADWP did the same after the Palisades fire and many instead said “Thank You.” So, Which is it?
The only ones who win are the bottled water companies who charge 1000% more for water from the same sources, without the same scrutiny and disclosure measures.
What large water systems can actually do about it (some are already doing it!)
I’ve sat across the table from state regulators in Sacramento.
I’ve also sat at kitchen tables in mountain towns and farming communities where the local water system operator is trying to explain to people why their bill went up again.
One size fits all. Same laws. Same mandates.
Very different ability among the spectrum of water suppliers to absorb any of it.
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Here’s what years of traveling California and working with small water systems has taught me:
The small communities being told their water system is the problem are often the same ones growing our food, moving goods through our ports, and stewarding the forests and watersheds the rest of California depends on.
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They don’t need charity.
They need what larger water systems already have — right-sized compliance timelines, procurement leverage, technical cooperation — extended to them as partners.
Not withheld from them because they are perceived as an inconvenient anomaly on a regulator’s spread sheet. In many places of California, small water systems are the only option.
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The Coachella Valley Water District, San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency, Mojave Water Agency, and San Bernardino Valley have all figured this out, among a few others. They are partners who view their smaller member agencies as part of their regional infrastructure. They open opportunities for improvements through bridge financing for grants that would otherwise be inaccessible. They don’t wait until a small water system has already been declared as “failing” for not meeting a drinking water standard. In one case in Calimesa, two of them, replaced a nitrate laden source with clean state project water. These agencies recognize that “fail-first” isn’t a public health solution.
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The State of California has had every opportunity to make that happen through smart regulatory design. It hasn’t.
So I’m putting the ask directly to larger water agencies: Step into that gap.
Not as an act of goodwill, but as interdependent suppliers for all Californians who depend on us, big and small, no matter where we find themselves in our state.
The best part is that the water industry could gain moral authority which it generally lacks by cowering before a flawed regulatory regime, and by hiding behind Prop 218 while leaving the smallest fending for themselves.
Please join us! Sign up here: https://smallwatersystemwarriors.com/contact/