The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:
(a) The State Department of Health Services has discovered toxic chemicals in 126 of California’s large public drinking water systems.
(b) Many of the chemical contaminants in California’s drinking water supplies are known or suspected of causing cancer, birth defects, and other serious illnesses.
(c) Following the passage of the California Safe Drinking Water Bond Law of 1984, the State Department of Health Services received 1,359 requests for eight hundred twenty-five million dollars ($825,000,000) to improve public drinking water systems. The department has determined that an additional five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000) is needed immediately for public water systems to correct deficiencies which pose a health hazard to enable hundreds of systems to meet mininum health standards.
(d) New monitoring programs for small public water systems are expected to identify many new toxic contamination problems. It is unlikely that these problems can be solved without financial assistance from the State of California.
(Added by Stats. 1986, Ch. 410, Sec. 1. Approved in Proposition 55 at the November 4, 1986, election.)