Summary
Clean Water For 2,600 seeks to enable sustainable safe drinking water for 2,600 children, students and families in 6-7 San Joaquin Valley communities with high levels of nitrate and arsenic groundwater contamination.
Background
One million people in California lack reliable access to clean water. Contaminated drinking water causes gastrointestinal illnesses, nervous or reproductive system impacts, and chronic diseases such as cancer.
3 out of 4 Californians with nitrate-contaminated drinking water live in the San Joaquin Valley. In 2007, nearly 300,000 people in the San Joaquin Valley drank water that violated the arsenic health standard.
Most of this is attributable to the contamination of the region’s groundwater by decades of intensive agricultural operations. Pesticides and fertilizers (primarily nitrates) from farms and mega-dairies contaminate groundwater basins, upon which 90% of communities in the San Joaquin Valley rely for drinking water. Most of the communities without safe drinking water are also the most politically underrepresented communities, left out of local, regional and state water planning and funding processes.
One in 10 people living in California's agricultural areas is at risk of exposure to harmful levels of nitrate contamination in their drinking water, according to a report released on March 13, 2012 by the University of California, Davis.
http://caes.ucdavis.edu/NewsEvents/spotlight/addressing-nitrate-in-californiasdrinking-water/?searchterm=california%20water%20nitrates
The report concluded that directly removing nitrate from groundwater basins is extremely costly and not technically feasible. It recommends drinking water supply actions, such as water treatment and alternative water supplies, as the most cost-effective way forward. This conclusion supports our program, i.e. provide alternative water filtration solutions with sustainable support and financing, so that children, families and communities stay healthy NOW, while longer-term initiatives tackle the agricultural and political causes of the San Joaquin Valley water crisis.
While there has been a lot of progress helping to develop long-term solutions for communities, there is very little funding for interim solutions necessary to keep families safe in the years that it takes to develop and implement long-term solutions. This project would focus on piloting different models of interim solutions and making them more accessible and available to communities.
San Joaquin Valley, California’s “bread basket” is the seat of our Clean Water for 2,600 Program. 6-7 communities in Kern, Tulare and Fresno Counties will be selected as representative of the broader Valley population. The hope is that, as a result, we can leverage the learning of this program and scale it across the entire Valley.
The communities to be empowered by this program will be selected based on 1) how severe their shortage of safe drinking water is; 2) the number of young children living in the community; and 3) the location of daycare centers and schools that could make clean water available for many.
The people we serve live in housing not connected to county water infrastructure. They, therefore, depend on wells that draw groundwater that has been polluted by agricultural pesticides, animal fecal matter and naturally occurring arsenic.
These communities are largely low-income agricultural and migrant workers. 50-60% of the population is of Hispanic origin, but the percentage in the selected communities will be higher. The per capita income in the 3 counties is $14,000-$16,000 and 21-24% live under the poverty line. 30+% of the population is under 18 years old.