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Celebrating a Victory for the Human Right to Water
UUSC joins our partners and allies in the Safe Water Alliance in California in celebrating a major achievement in our human-right-to water campaign: four of our five bills made it through the governor's signature and were signed into law on Friday! In his message signing the drinking-water legislation, Governor Brown emphasized, "Clean drinking water is a basic human right." He added, "The bills I have signed today will help ensure that every Californian has access to clean and safe sources of water. Protecting the water we drink is an absolutely crucial duty of state government."
The bills will allow small communities and unrecognized tribes access to state funds to clean up drinking water and put in place drinking-water and sewerage systems where communities are not served. Local authorities will be required to plan for communities in their service areas that have been discriminated against and not served. Water agencies will now give notice of water-quality violations in languages that are appropriate to consumers.
The main proposed human-right-water legislation, A.B. 685, is suspended in the California Senate until the legislature reconvenes. Our coalition partners in the Safe Water Alliance will push forward on A.B. 685 and hopefully bring the bill to Governor Brown by this time next year, addressing the concerns of decision makers and the opposition and broadening the base of support in California. We hope that this time next year we can celebrate A.B. 685 being signed into law!
