Published on May 27, 2003
ALL CALIFORNIA schoolchildren should have access to drinking water. After all, this isn't Bangladesh or Mississippi. But too often it's easier to buy sugar-saturated sodas from vending machines in hallways, locker rooms and school cafeterias than to slurp water from a water fountain.
Along with basics such as textbooks, schoolkids are entitled to water fountains that work. The California Center for Public Health Advocacy found that 42 percent of 18 Los Angeles schools it surveyed had water fountains so unsanitary or had water pressure so low that they were essentially non- functional. An unknown number of other schools are similarly afflicted.
Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, has introduced AB598 to get the water flowing. It will require schools modernizing their buildings using state bond money to install "fully functional, modern, and sanitary drinking fountains." It also will make it easier for all schools to apply for bond money just to upgrade their water fountains.
Hancock is convinced non-working water fountains are contributing to the crisis of obesity among California children. "Clean, drinkable water should be available to all our children all the time," Hancock said. "To have the only alternative be a vending machine, or a little juice or milk from the cafeteria is not acceptable."
The bill was approved by the Assembly Education Committee and now goes to the Appropriations Committee. "Water is a basic human right," Hancock says. No California legislator should ever have a reason to make such a statement. We urge quick passage of AB598.