State Water Board selects Stantec to oversee drinking water system repairs in Teviston

SACRAMENTO – Advancing the state’s commitment to securing safe drinking water for all Californians as a human right, the State Water Resources Control Board has appointed a water system administrator to the Teviston Community Services District in Tulare County to guide the system’s interim and long-term solutions to its drinking water problems.

Stantec, an engineering consulting firm, will be the first water system administrator for Teviston, a small, rural community contending with system outages and groundwater contamination from 1,2,3 trichloropropane (TCP) since 2018. Since the pump failed on the system’s only well in June 2021, the SAFER program has funded hauled water delivery for residents through Self Help Enterprises.

With its contamination issues compounded by infrastructure problems in recent years, the system has faced major logistical challenges. Stantec will oversee the system and provide the technical and managerial capacity it needs to execute repairs and identify sustainable solutions.

This is the fifth administrator appointment arranged and funded through the State Water Board’s Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) drinking water program in the last year. Since the SAFER program began in 2019, $25 million has been allocated to fund administrator work, estimated to benefit about 4,000 people in 20 communities. An additional 12 administrators will be selected within the next year.

“Administrator appointments are a valuable tool for the SAFER program to accelerate drinking water solutions in disadvantaged communities,” said Andrew Altevogt, assistant deputy director for the Division of Drinking Water. “Communities like Teviston – with only 466 residents – often don’t have the technical or managerial capacity to navigate the kinds of complexities that arise in drinking water projects. We are vetting, funding and assigning administrators to these communities as quickly as possible so these projects can move forward.”

A water system administrator is a qualified specialist, often a third-party engineer, who provides technical, managerial, and/or financial expertise and facilitates drinking water projects for communities on the state’s Human Right to Water list, a designation assigned to systems that consistently fail to meet primary drinking water standards.

"I'm glad our community is receiving extra help because it would be really hard for us to reach our goal of providing safe drinking water without it,” said Alazkari Flores, general manager for Teviston Community Services District. “I'm looking forward to working with Stantec."

For more information on Stantec’s role and responsibilities, see the Administrator Policy Handbook, revised this year, and recently adopted guidelines that expedite the funding application process and enable staff to provide technical assistance and appoint administrators.

The State Water Board’s mission is to preserve, enhance and restore the quality of California’s water resources and drinking water for the protection of the environment, public health, and all beneficial uses, and to ensure proper resource allocation and efficient use for present and future generations.