Where can Californians turn when their water is brown? LA County saga shows the way

Imagine growing up in a home where tap water consistently runs a stomach-churning brown, sometimes with an odor.

You hate to bathe in it, and you certainly aren’t going to drink it. You’re not in some remote hinterland, either. You’re in Los Angeles County.

Brown tap water was a feature of my childhood. No one outside our poorly managed and financially challenged Sativa Water District in Compton and Willowbrook seemed to understand or care that we feared our own water.

My mom purchased bottled water for drinking and cooking, shouldering the cost like an extra tax. Still, we had to climb into the murky stuff in the bathtub. Sometimes our clothes came out of the wash more stained than when they went in.

This is what I experienced growing up in a Mexican immigrant family served by a tiny public water district. We got used to that brown water, since nothing was done about it for years. We hoped the color would go away, but knew it wouldn’t leave on its own.

Things didn’t start to change until the youngest of my three children was a teenager. People were less accepting than I’d been for far too long, and began expressing outrage over their putrid water.

Sativa’s customers were mostly people of color, like me. The media labeled us predominantly
low-income. As one resident told our local TV station, the district was “not treating us like human beings.”

Although Sativa served just 1,600 households, social media helped amplify our voices and, finally, our influence. News outlets showed the ugly water gushing from our faucets and interviewed residents who refused to drink it.

Although we were told the water was safe, few believed it. While the district was losing friends, Sativa’s customers were making new ones in high places. After stormy public testimony in 2018, an oversight board voted to dismantle Sativa, pointing to its history of administrative and financial mismanagement, worsened by aging infrastructure.

We were no longer the only ones angry. “Sativa Board members have ignored their responsibilities,” county Supervisor Janice Hahn declared, “abused their positions, and even had the nerve to give themselves bonuses – all while their customers dealt with brown, dirty tap water.”

Then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill by Assemblymember Mike Gipson allowing the removal of Sativa’s elected board members, and permitted Los Angeles County to temporarily manage our district until a suitable owner emerged.

Things are very different for us today: We have clean water and lower utility costs. Financial help is also available for those that need it.

The county eventually chose a private investor-owned utility, Suburban Water Systems, which also became my employer. Suburban had the resources to commit $8.5 million to system upgrades and additional funds to leverage a grant and remove the manganese that darkened our water.

After state approval to acquire Sativa in 2022, Suburban cut our monthly water bills by more than 8%. Some customers who qualify for assistance pay even less.

In Sacramento, other bills have passed to consolidate struggling public water districts like Sativa with more stable systems such as Suburban, which has 78,000 water connections.

Clean tap water should be a right, no matter what neighborhood you live in. As I’ve learned, help is available – from counties, from the state, from private business entities – when consumers are stuck with water that they fear to drink.