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.