Practice Areas > Water Quality Assurance
Safe Drinking Water Act and Department of Health Standards
Federal law imposes minimum drinking water standards on the State of California and allows the State to impose stricter standards on drinking water providers. The California Department of Public Health sets statewide water quality standards and also imposes circumstance-specific requirements on particular drinking water providers. Compliance with water quality standards often is addressed on a regional basis by a wholesale or joint powers water agency, but often falls directly upon a retail water provider that has its own independent water source or sources. MKB assists clients through the intricacies of drinking water quality laws.
Groundwater Contamination Liability and Cleanup
The detection of an industrial chemical in a drinking water well is bad news for a water provider. Development and installation of treatment technology to meet the Department of Public Health requirements often is time-consuming and always is an unwanted expense. Water agencies understandably want to recover the costs of correcting contamination from the parties responsible for the original pollution. Federal and state laws, however, are not ideally suited to protect and assist water providers in efficiently overcoming the drinking water supply challenges posed by contamination. MKB lawyers are expert in the laws relevant to groundwater contamination and cleanup, and we assist water agencies in both advice and litigation capacities.
Clean Water Act, State and Regional Water Boards
The federal Clean Water Act governs discharges of “waste” to the waters of the United States and is implemented in California by the State Water Resources Control Board and nine Regional Water Quality Control Boards under authority of the state Porter-Cologne Water Quality Act. These laws obviously affect water agencies that operate waste water systems, but they also affect the use of recycled water to supplement water supplies. Another current controversy in the federal courts and among the California Regional Boards involves treating the discharge (including for groundwater basin recharge) of water imported from outside a watershed as the discharge of a “waste.” MKB lawyers frequently advise and represent water agency clients in regard to Clean Water Act matters.