Water Justice Clinic Receives $3.2 million in Funding

UC Davis School of Law’s Water Justice Clinic has received a $3.2 million grant that will support its work on behalf of rural and low-income communities for the next three years.

The grant from the California State Water Resources Control Board’s SAFER (Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience) Drinking Water program enables the clinic to continue to provide legal support for communities to improve substandard or contaminated domestic water supplies so they meet Safe Drinking Water Act standards.

“These communities cannot typically afford legal assistance,” Professor and Water Justice Clinic Director David Sandino said of the clients whom Sandino, attorneys Melissa Quintero and Lindsay  Sotomayor ’24, clinic administrator Teresa Medina and clinical students often help connect to bigger water suppliers.

Students develop complicated contracts, commonly called “consolidation agreements,” to help rural clients, Sandino said. “They allow our clients to legally join a larger water system with the capacity of providing better quality water.”

In early March, Sandino took students on a field trip to the Linda County Water District facilities in Yuba County. The district will provide water to a clinic client – a mobile home park that had a contaminated groundwater well.

The Water Justice Clinic also serves clients in nearby Solano and Lake counties. But its reach is throughout the state, with clients as far south as Riverside and Imperial counties.