Kristin Dobbin, an assistant professor of Cooperative Extension in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, recently spoke to the Los Angeles Times about her new research that links democracy to the outcomes of water utilities.
Published earlier this month in Nature Water, Dobbin’s research explores whether or not California community water systems perform better or worse if residents have a say in local water decision-making. In 2012, California became one of the first states in the nation to recognize clean, accessible, and affordable drinking water as a human right. Dobbin, who studies water justice policy and planning in California, wanted to see how different types of utilities have performed in achieving that goal.
To conduct their study, Dobbin and her co-authors analyzed more than 2,400 state residential water suppliers and divided them into three categories: systems where all registered voters in a service area can elect board members, systems where only property owners are eligible to vote in board member elections, and systems where customers have no opportunity to vote. Dobbin told the LA Times that her research revealed that, on average, “water utilities where all voters have a say in choosing leaders tend to perform better” than those whose voters do not have a say.
Only 9% of water systems where all eligible voters had the opportunity to vote on governing board members were identified as failing, according to the study. Approximately 13% of systems with limited participation were identified as failing, as were 12% of systems where voters have no say. Fully democratic water systems had fewer cases of E. coli contamination from sewage leaks or agricultural runoff, the researchers found. In contrast, utilities where customers have no voting rights were more than twice as likely to incur an E.coli violation.
The study also noted that 58% of systems serving more than 6.5 million Californians limit some or all participation in their water system, and that residents served by these systems are more likely to be Black, low-income, or face larger cumulative environmental burdens. “We find very clearly that low-income communities of color are less likely to have water democracy than others,” Dobbin told the LA Times
Read the full study in Nature Water
