L.A. County Water Bills Rising Faster Than Inflation, UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation Finds

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Water bills in Los Angeles County have surged nearly 60% over the past decade, outpacing inflation and intensifying financial strain for low-income households, according to new research from UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation and the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Researchers examined 663 water systems across six Southern California counties and found that water affordability and quality remain major issues. Many smaller systems — particularly in Kern County, which logged more than 1,500 water quality violations in the past decade — struggle with contamination from arsenic and bacteria.

Edith de Guzman, cooperative extension water researcher at UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation, said rising costs highlight the need for structural solutions. “It is concerning that we have this trend of rates outpacing inflation,” de Guzman said. “Somebody has to pick up the bill. It is increasingly challenging for some of our neighbors to do that, and if we don’t think about how to generate the political will and provide assistance to those communities, we will not only fail to achieve the human right to water, but we will be leaving a lot of our neighbors behind.”

Gregory Pierce, director of UCLA’s Human Right to Water Solutions Lab, warned that rising water rates are likely to worsen over the next two decades as aging infrastructure demands costly upgrades and new contaminant regulations take effect. “We have to invest more. But the money has to come from somewhere. And I guess right now we’re just saying, ‘It comes from you, local ratepayer, so you’re on your own,’” Pierce said.

Explore the updated Southern California Community Water Systems Atlas to see how water quality and affordability vary across Southern California communities.

UCLA Student Research Drives Water Resilience and Equitable Solutions in Post-Fire Los Angeles

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A team of UCLA master’s students in urban and regional planning (MURP) has produced an extensive report, “Drought and Climate Resiliency Solutions for Small Water Systems in Los Angeles County,” offering real-world strategies to strengthen water security and climate resilience. 

When the January 2025 wildfires swept through Pacific Palisades, a group of MURP students witnessed the devastation unfold in real time on their first day of class. What started as a class project on water system vulnerabilities quickly became a real-world assignment: students, many personally affected by the fires, sprang into action to research and propose solutions that not only addressed the immediate impacts of the wildfires but also offered long-term strategies to strengthen water security and climate resilience. 

Developed in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works and guided by faculty at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, the year-long project examines the vulnerabilities of small water systems, many of which were directly impacted by the L.A. wildfires, and proposes solutions to ensure safe and reliable drinking water for fire-impacted communities across Los Angeles County. 

The twelve-student research team included Alex Sun, Allison Samsel, Aydin Pasebani, Catherine Ren, Chloe Curry, Dana Choi, Emily Cadena, Leo Blain, Leila Moinpour, Nasir Sakandar, Veronica De Santos, and Will Callan. They conducted in-depth analyses on drought risk, wildfire impacts, and system preparedness, culminating in a professional presentation of their findings. Their work is already informing county and state-wide efforts to advance the human right to water and shape long-term climate resilience strategies. 

“This work by our student team will serve to directly inform real-time L.A. County and California state agency efforts to ensure a human right to water in the region,” said Greg Pierce, UCLA professor of urban planning, Luskin Center for Innovation senior director, and director of the Human Rights to Water Solutions Lab who co-advised the report. “The methodologies developed on drought water shortage risk and fire vulnerability also have wide applicability well beyond the county.”  

Edith de Guzman, adjunct professor of urban planning and water equity and adaptation policy cooperative extension specialist at Luskin Center for Innovation was another co-advisor on the project and underscored the importance of the students’ work. “This project benefited greatly from the hard work, diligence, and nimbleness of a dozen MURP students,” de Guzman said. “In the end, the result is an impressive suite of actionable assessments, analyses, and findings — all painstakingly documented.”  

A key emphasis of the report is the feasibility of water system consolidation, an approach that can improve technical and financial stability for struggling utilities. Alongside consolidation, the report also considers alternative strategies such as water conservation, new well development, and recycling projects. 

“This suite of outcomes contributes innovative new guidance in understudied and largely unregulated spaces — including community water system fire risk and preparedness,” said de Guzman. 

Pierce praised the students’ work following the capstone presentation: “You did amazing work that culminated in a professional presentation that demonstrates real solutions for climate resiliency in small water systems. But at its core, this report is about water access as a human right. You should all be very proud.” 

The findings are a partial preview of the Southern California Community Water Systems Guide, which will be released by Luskin Center for Innovation in late Summer 2025. This guide will present performance data on all community water systems in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties, building on analyses completed in 2015 and 2020, which focused only on Los Angeles County.  

De Guzman on Extreme Heat Impact on Infrastructure

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Edith de Guzman of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, commented in an Axios story on the impact of extreme heat on infrastructure. While much of the nation has been under heat advisories for individuals, extreme heat also can affect vital infrastructure including energy, transportation, buildings, water and digital infrastructure, according to experts. De Guzman, a water policy specialist, said, “We have all this infrastructure that is meant to make us comfortable in the urban area, but not only is that infrastructure exacerbating the heat, the heat is actually deteriorating that infrastructure.” This includes increased energy demand on the power grid for cooling, deterioration and damage to roads and railways and equipment such as traffic signals, sensors and telecommunication that rely on the electrical infrastructure.

Read the story

 

A Test of Los Angeles’ Fire Preparedness

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Edith de Guzman of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation spoke to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered”  about the ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles. The program, part of a special series on California wildfires, focused on L.A.’s preparedness for the fires — made worse by Santa Ana wind conditions — which have led to loss of life, burned thousands of structures and displaced thousands of Angelenos. De Guzman said that the past week has tested L.A.’s otherwise high level of fire preparedness. With “embers flying miles apart, fire ignition is extremely difficult to predict or control and it’s happening simultaneously in so many places,” said De Guzman, a University of California Cooperative Extension specialist on water equity and adaptation policy. She added that climate change and the fact that much of L.A.’s housing stock is built with wooden construction for seismic safety have made things worse.