Rural Kern County residents have a higher likelihood of drinking water tainted with unhealthful levels of contaminants than their southern California neighbors, thanks, in part to Kern’s hodgepodge of small, under resourced water systems, according to a report from the Luskin Center for Innovation at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Researchers found that Kern’s 164 systems serve an average 5,393 customers, indicating significant “water sprawl” in the county, particularly in rural, primarily low-income, areas.
Ninety-one of those systems had 1,546 water quality violations over the past 10 years, more than three times the next highest county studied, according to the report.
That system fragmentation in Kern has also resulted in significantly higher monthly bills for residents of severely disadvantaged communities, where researchers found costs sometimes exceeded $145 a month – the highest of all counties studied…