(a) Once every five years the state board shall submit to the Legislature a comprehensive Safe Drinking Water Plan for California.

(b) The Safe Drinking Water Plan shall include, but not be limited to, the following information:

(1) An analysis of the overall quality of California’s drinking water and the identification of specific water quality problems.

(2) Types and levels of contaminants found in public drinking water systems that have less than 10,000 service connections. The discussion of these water systems shall include the following:

(A) Estimated costs of requiring these systems to meet primary drinking water standards and public health goals.

(B) Recommendations for actions that could be taken by the Legislature, the department, and these systems to improve water quality.

(3) A discussion and analysis of the known and potential health risks that may be associated with drinking water contamination in California.

(4) An evaluation of how existing water quality information systems currently maintained by local or state agencies can be more effectively used to protect drinking water.

(5) An evaluation of the research needed to develop inexpensive methods and instruments to ensure better screening and detection of waterborne chemicals, and inexpensive detection methods that could be used by small utilities and consumers to detect harmful microbial agents in drinking water.

(6) An analysis of the technical and economic viability and the health benefits of various treatment techniques that can be used to reduce levels of trihalomethanes, lead, nitrates, synthetic organic chemicals, micro-organisms, and other contaminants in drinking water.

(7) A discussion of alternative methods of financing the construction, installation, and operation of new treatment technologies, including, but not limited to user charges, state or local taxes, state planning and construction grants, loans, and loan guarantees.

(8) A discussion of sources of revenue presently available, and projected to be available, to public water systems to meet current and future expenses.

(9) An analysis of the current cost of drinking water paid by residential, business, and industrial consumers based on a statewide survey of large, medium, and small public water systems.

(10) Specific recommendations, including recommendations developed pursuant to paragraph (6), to improve the quality of drinking water in California and a detailed five-year implementation program.

(11) A review of the use of administrators pursuant to Section 116686 in the state, including, but not limited to, the number of communities that have achieved access to safe drinking water through use of an administrator, the costs and duties of the administrator and a comparison of costs, whether rate structures for communities served by an administrator have resulted in significantly higher rates and whether those rates are affordable, and whether the administrator program should be modified to better serve communities.

(12) A review of the consolidations pursuant to Section 116682 in the state, including, but not limited to, the number of communities that have achieved access to safe drinking water through consolidation, whether rate structures for communities are affordable following consolidation, barriers to consolidation, and whether the consolidation program should be modified to better serve communities.

(Amended by Stats. 2018, Ch. 871, Sec. 1. (AB 2501) Effective January 1, 2019.)