Water: schoolsites: lead testing.

Plain English Breakdown

The official source does not specify penalties for false statements or representations, leaving this detail uncertain.

Lead Testing in Schools and Childcare Facilities

AB-1096 requires community water systems to gather specific information from elementary schools and childcare facilities about lead testing, compile it, and report it to the State Water Resources Control Board for public access.

What This Bill Does

• Requires community water systems to collect detailed information when offering lead sampling in drinking water to elementary schools and childcare facilities.
• Allows these institutions to choose reasons why they do not want lead testing from a provided list if they decline, unless exempted by federal waiver.
• Requires community water systems to submit all collected information to the State Water Resources Control Board.
• Directs the state board to make this information publicly available online in a searchable format by June 30, 2028.
• Necessitates that community water systems include a statement about lead testing information availability and provide a direct link to it in their annual consumer confidence reports.

Who It Names or Affects

• Community water systems
• Elementary schools and childcare facilities

Terms To Know

State Water Resources Control Board

The agency responsible for regulating drinking water in California to protect public health.

Consumer Confidence Report

An annual report by community water systems that provides information about local drinking water and any contaminants found in it.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify the exact penalties for false statements or representations.
• It is unclear how many schools and childcare facilities will decline lead testing and provide reasons from the list.

Official Summary Text

AB 1096, Connolly.
Water: schoolsites: lead testing.
Existing law, the California Safe Drinking Water Act, requires the State Water Resources Control Board to administer provisions relating to the regulation of drinking water to protect public health. Existing federal regulations require community water systems to contact all schools and childcare facilities, as defined, to provide information about the health risks from lead in drinking water and of eligibility to be sampled for lead by the water system. Existing federal regulations require a community water system to report to the state annually on the notification of eligibility and sampling for lead, and information regarding the number and names of schools and childcare facilities served by the water system, those sampled in the previous year, the facilities that declined sampling, facilities that did not respond to outreach attempts for sampling, and information pertaining to those
outreach attempts for sampling.
Existing law makes it a crime to knowingly make any false statement or representation in any application, record, report, or other document submitted, maintained, or used for purposes of compliance with this act.
This bill would require a community water system, when making outreach attempts to elementary schools and childcare facilities for the purposes of offering lead sampling in drinking water, to compile specified information and to provide elementary schools and childcare facilities that decline lead testing with an opportunity to provide information about their reasons for declining by allowing them to select from a list that includes specified options, unless the school or childcare facility is exempted from lead testing by federal waiver, as provided. The bill would authorize the state board to add additional reasons for declining lead testing to that list. The bill would require a
community water system to submit all of the above-described information that it compiles or that is provided to it to the state board, as provided. The bill would require the state board, on or before June 30, 2028, to make all of that information publicly available in a searchable format on its internet website, as specified. The bill also would require, on or before December 31, 2028, a community water system to include, in its annual consumer confidence report, a written statement about the availability of information pertaining to lead testing in schools and childcare facilities on the state board’s internet website and a direct link to that website. Because knowingly making a false statement or representation in that report would be a crime under the California Safe Drinking Water Act, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by expanding the scope of a crime.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies
and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF