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Families, local Rotary Clubs, and Community Water Center teamed up to install Point-of-Use filters in 29 households in the small farm-working community of Monson, CA. The goal is to treat high nitrate contamination in the drinking water from private wells

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  • Site 3: Nitrates - baseline (2)

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Narrative

Problem
Monson is a small, unincorporated community comprised of primarily Latino farmworkers and retired residents, many of whom live below the poverty line. Surrounded by orchards and farm land, Monson has some of the highest levels of nitrate contamination in Tulare County, up to three times the federal legal limit. The main sources of nitrates come from fertilizers and animal waste from dairies. High levels of nitrates can cause health problems like Blue Baby Syndrome, diarrhea and vomiting, birth defects, pregnancy complications, and cancer. With the lack of a water system infrastructure, Monson families must rely on unregulated private wells for their source of water and can spend up to 10% of their monthly income on bottled water (Pacific Institute, The Human Costs of Nitrate-Contaminated Drinking Water in the San Joaquin Valley, 2011) – an economic burden such that families sometimes have to choose between buying bottled water or drinking contaminated tap water to afford necessities like food or medicine. In 2008, the community applied for state funding to explore their options for long-term, sustainable solutions to have clean water, but were met with years of funding obstacles and bureaucratic delays.

Solution
While Monson community members have continued to advocate and worked to address these obstacles to achieve long-term funding, they also realized that they needed an interim source of safe water in the mean-time. In 2012, the community of Monson partnered up with local Rotary clubs and Community Water Center (CWC) in order to explore cost-effective options for interim solutions that met their needs and decided to implement Point-of-Use (POU) water filters in their kitchens. The POU filters are certified by NSF and the California Department of Public Health to remove nitrates, are locally available in hardware stores such as Home Depot, and are more cost-effective and convenient than buying bottled water.

Partners
This community-driven project was a collaborative process that involved the support of many different partners. Monson families, Rotary, and CWC worked together to develop a plan for implementation. The costs of the POU filter systems, replacement filters, and installation labor costs were sponsored by Rotary and the costs of initial and follow-up water quality testing were donated in-kind by California Water Service Company. Together, CWC and Rotary facilitated community meetings, assessed the plumbing needs of each home, coordinated and installed filters in homes, collected water samples, conducted educational workshops on proper operations and maintenance (O&M), and provided assistance with ongoing O&M and troubleshooting support.