Public water systems: emergency notification plan.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary and digest do not provide specific details on enforcement or penalties for non-compliance.

Emergency Notification Plan for Public Water Systems

This law allows public water systems to notify customers in their preferred language during updates of the emergency notification plan if there are sufficient resources.

What This Bill Does

• Authorizes and encourages public water systems to provide notifications to users in their preferred language when updating the emergency notification plan, provided that resources are available.

Who It Names or Affects

• Public water systems that operate under California's Safe Drinking Water Act.
• Customers of these public water systems who prefer notifications in a language other than English.

Terms To Know

Emergency Notification Plan

A plan required by law for public water systems to inform customers about immediate dangers related to drinking water quality, such as significant rises in bacterial count or non-compliance with primary standards.

Public Water System

An organization that supplies water to the public and is regulated under California's Safe Drinking Water Act.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify what happens if a public water system lacks resources for multilingual notifications.
• It remains unclear how this change will be enforced or monitored by regulatory bodies.

Official Summary Text

AB 990, as introduced, Hadwick.
Public water systems: emergency notification plan.
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, including, but not limited to, conducting research, studies, and demonstration programs relating to the provision of a dependable, safe supply of drinking water, enforcing the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, adopting enforcement regulations, and conducting studies and investigations to assess the quality of domestic water wells.
Existing law prohibits a person from operating a public water system without an emergency notification plan that has been submitted to and approved by the state board. Existing law requires the emergency notification plan to provide for immediate notice to the customers of the public water system of any
significant rise in the bacterial count of water or other failure to comply with any primary drinking water standard that represents an imminent danger to the health of the water users.
This bill would authorize and encourage a public water system to provide notification to water users in their preferred language when updating the emergency notification plan, if resources are available.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF