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State Water Board exec highlights SAFER gains, warns domestic-well challenge remains
Summary
State Water Resources Control Board Executive Director Eric Oppenheimer told the SAFER advisory group the program has reduced the number of Californians served by failing water systems from about 1.6 million in 2019 to roughly 800,000, while cautioning that domestic wells and other distributed problems remain a major challenge.
State Water Resources Control Board Executive Director Eric Oppenheimer opened the SAFER advisory group meeting by telling new and returning members the board has made measurable progress delivering safe drinking water but faces “a huge amount of work” ahead.
Oppenheimer said the program began in 2019 with about 1.6 million Californians receiving water from systems the board considered failing. “At the halfway point, we’ve gotten that number down to about 800,000 people,” he said. “It’s not a luxury, it’s a right.”
The board has used the SAFER program and related funding to approve more than $1 billion in drinking‑water grants for disadvantaged communities, Oppenheimer said, and has committed support for regional domestic‑well testing and emergency well drilling. He told the advisory group the statewide tally includes more than 140 system consolidations that together have benefited roughly 100,000 people.
Why it matters: Oppenheimer framed the SAFER program as an agency priority and said the advisory group’s practical experience will influence funding priorities, technical assistance and regulatory choices. “We do a lot of internal strategizing,” he said, “but we don’t have all the ideas. We need outside perspectives.”
Board members and staff used the meeting to outline both the program’s record and what remains unresolved. Board Member Laurel Firestone agreed that SAFER’s work is urgent but cautioned the group the agency’s authorities and resources have limits. She emphasized that public‑health protections guide decisions during drought and curtailment and said “human health and safety needs are the utmost priority.”
Staff and advisory members described the scale of remaining need. The Division of Financial Assistance reported preliminary estimates that completing long‑term fixes for the public water systems still on the 2019 failing list could require roughly $1.8 billion over the next several years; that estimate does not include state small systems and the roughly 350,000 domestic wells outside the public system regulatory framework. Division of Drinking Water staff told members a growing part of SAFER’s workload is planning and funding options for domestic wells and small mutual systems that are not fully regulated by the state.
Advisory group members raised several programmatic themes: prioritizing limited funds to get the biggest public‑health benefit, improving data on domestic wells, and clarifying when the board will use its regulatory tools — including mandatory consolidation — if voluntary options do not resolve public‑health risks. Staff said the board has used mandatory consolidation orders in only a small number of failing systems and prefers voluntary solutions supported by funding incentives where possible.
The meeting closed with staff reminding members that the board will continue to seek the group’s advice in development of the annual fund expenditure plan and other policy documents that determine which communities, projects and types of assistance get priority.
