California Adds Drinking Water Tax to Offset Pollution from Farming

California wants to tax household drinking water.

The Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund Bill would tax every house an additional 95 cents a month to go towards treatment plants in rural areas with polluted water.

Not everybody is on board with the idea. The San Diego County Taxpayers Association opposes the bill, saying farmers are causing the pollution, which is a byproduct of agriculture and that they should have to pay for the water treatment.  The bill only makes farmers pay a small portion of the total posts needed to run water treatment facilities.

Haney Hong, president of the association, stated, “Twenty percent of the funding for this correction for the water source, which is an important thing to do, comes from the polluters, and the rest, the 80 percent, comes from the rest of us in California. That’s not how this should work.”

Several environmental and farming groups reportedly say the tax is the only way roughly a million people can get clean water.
“These Californians deserve better, and I will continue to urge my colleagues in the Legislature to work together with the governor to finally achieve the guarantee of safe and affordable drinking water to all Californians,” explained Bill Monning, the Senator who introduced the bill.  

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