Office of Sustainable Water Solutions

    The Office of Sustainable Water Solutions (Office) was established on March 27, 2015 as a result of the Governor signing Assembly Bill 92. The Office is part of the State Water Resources Control Board’s (State Water Board), Division of Financial Assistance (DFA).

    The Office was created to promote permanent and sustainable drinking water and wastewater treatment solutions to ensure effective and efficient provision of safe, clean, affordable, and reliable drinking water and wastewater treatment services. The Office is focused on addressing financial and technical assistance needs, particularly for small disadvantaged communities through the Small Community Funding Program.

    For more information on SAFER, visit the Safe and Affordable Fund for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) website.

    Small Community Funding is available to assist small disadvantaged communities (small DACs) and small severely disadvantaged communities (small SDACs) implement eligible drinking water and wastewater projects. Funding is implemented through the Small Community Funding Program, the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Fund Programs, the Emergency Drinking Water and Cleanup or Abatement Programs and the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Program utilizing federal and state funds including Proposition 1 and Proposition 68.

    • Small Community Drinking Water Funding
      The Small Community Drinking Water (SCDW) Funding Program provides low-interest loans and other financing mechanisms, such as grants or principal forgiveness using federal and state funds, for the planning/design and construction of drinking water infrastructure projects that are needed to achieve or maintain compliance with federal and state drinking water statutes and regulations. The SCDW Funding Program utilizes the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) Policies and guidelines to administer the program. Eligible planning/design and construction drinking water projects include treatment systems, distribution systems, interconnections, consolidations, pipeline extensions, water sources, and water meters. The SCDW Funding Program is continually accepting applications.
    • Small Community Clean Water/Wastewater Funding
      The Small Community Wastewater (SCWW) Funding Program provides low-interest loans and other financing mechanisms, such as grants or principal forgiveness using federal and state funds, for water quality improvement projects. The SCWW Funding Program utilizes the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) Policies and guidelines to administer the program. Eligible planning/design and construction of publicly-owned facilities including wastewater treatment plants, sewer collectors and interceptors, combined sewers, septic to sewer conversions, storm water reduction and treatment, and water reclamation facilities. The SCWW Funding Program is continually accepting applications.
    • Small Community Emergency Grant (SCEG) funds
      For information regarding the Emergency Drinking Water and Cleanup or Abatement Programs, please visit the following pages:
    • Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience Program
      The Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) Funding Program provides a set of tools, funding sources, and regulatory authorities designed to ensure that one million Californians who currently lack safe drinking water receive safe & affordable drinking water as quickly as possible. The Fund will provide $130 million per year that will be used to develop and implement sustainable solutions for small systems with violations of drinking water standards. The money may be spent on operations and maintenance costs, cost of consolidating with larger system, provision of replacement water, and funding for administrators to run the small systems.

    Technical Assistance (TA) is available to help small (less than 10,000 people) disadvantaged (median household income [MHI] 80% statewide MHI) communities (small DACs) develop, fund, and implement eligible drinking water*, wastewater*, stormwater**, or groundwater needs. TA include but is not limited to coordination and development of capital improvement projects, facilitation of operation and maintenance, engineering and environmental analysis, legal assistance, leak detection/water audits, compliance audits, financial analysis, technical managerial and financial (TMF) assessments, and board or operator training.

    For all TA requests, complete this TA Request Form and email it to DFA-TArequest@waterboards.ca.gov.

    For questions regarding technical assistance, please contact:

    • Zoe Wu
      Senior Water Resource Control Engineer
      Office of Sustainable Water Solutions
      Division of Financial Assistance
      Zoe.Wu@waterboards.ca.gov
    • James Garrett
      Senior Water Resource Control Engineer
      Office of Sustainable Water Solutions
      Division of Financial Assistance
      (916) 445-4218
      James.Garrett@waterboards.ca.gov

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