The drinking water plan has alarmed some environmental groups, who worry it sets a precedent of the state using the cap and trade money for other purposes as the state struggles to meets its emission reduction goals.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/article233066507.html
So, it sure looks like, in order to address certain water supply problems, which are admittedly exacerbated by global warming, California will diminish its own efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions!
Consider that the "... Central Valley has been sinking ... since the 1920s and is estimated to have sunk up to 28 feet. During drought years, the valley is prone to accelerated subsidence": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_land_subsidence
As far back as 1988 there was scientific consensus that the earth was on a trajectory toward a doubling of CO2 levels and by 2001 the IPCC said "it was much more likely than not that our civilization faced severe global warming": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/discovery-of-glob...
California's government has officially acknowledged global warming since at least 2006: https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/ab32/ab32.htm
Also in 2006, the Union of Concerned Scientists noted that global warming would impact future water supply by reducing the Sierra Nevada snowpack: https://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/im...
About 30 million Californians rely at least partially upon groundwater sources for their water, but the state didn't get around to regulating well drilling until 2014 with a relatively weak law that "does not go as far as other Western states by granting state agencies the power to authorize or prohibit groundwater withdrawals": https://www.kqed.org/science/21706/what-to-know-about-califo...
I predict that we'll keep seeing well failures in California and that government's actions will not be enough to reliably provide safe tap water to all of California's communities.
The fact that there is government provided bottled water in some places should not be looked upon as good management or a success story. It's a bandaid on a broken system and a statewide failure to manage and provide safe water resources and infrastructure.
The the appropriations bill you mention does not make up for the years of failure to provide clean, contaminant free tap water on an equal basis to all communities statewide. And even if it succeeds across the state in every community, it will take years to actually fix all of the tap water problems.
Five days ago, The NY Times reported As many as 1,000 community water systems in California may be at high risk of failing to deliver potable water — one out of every three — according to a previously undisclosed estimate by senior officials at the California State Water Resources Control Board:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/us/the-crisis-lurking-in-...
The Guardian reports that some Central Valley communities have water contaminated by arsenic, It’s cruel to be living in a state that’s so powerful, so rich, but we can’t count on clean water...:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/18/californ...
Maywood, a poor city in Los Angeles County, has had a multi-year contaminated tap water problem:
https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/project/assessing-groundwater-cont...