A report released Tuesday confirmed approximately a million of Californians lack access to safe drinking water, and that includes parts of the Bay Area.
The report said the state's water board is taking too long to help communities in need and stated that more than two thirds of the failing water systems are in disadvantaged communities.
Most of the aforementioned communities are in the Central Valley and inland Southern California. In the Bay Area, Napa, Sonoma and San Mateo counties are the only ones where more than 1,000 water customers are affected.
"We're talking about almost 400 water systems who are failing to provide safe, drinking water to their customers," said Michael Tilden, Acting California State Auditor. "That's significant."
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Tilden points out one major issue; there's $650 million sitting idle in state funding to fix the problem.
His report shows applications to the state water board for money to fix the problems used to take 17 months to approve. Last year, the time nearly double to almost 33 months.
"Streamline the application and review process to get that money out the door more quickly so these water systems have the funding and technical expertise to improve their water systems in a more timely manner," Tilden said.
The water board countered by saying it has boosted outreach to towns in need.
"But that doesn't take into account the fact that we're providing double the number of funding to communities and reaching a far greater number of communities than we've ever reached before," explained Laurel Firestone with the State Water Resources Control Board.
Water problems vary from county to county.
In some areas pipes need to be replaced while in others pesticides need to be prevented from leaking into supply.
The auditor warns that in some places, people could face long-term health problems stemming from the water they're drinking.
"We are really focused on everything we could be doing to accelerate our processes," said Firestone.
