It will take both short-term and long-term solutions to ensure that all San Joaquín Valley residents have access to clean and affordable drinking water. The 2012 Human Right to Water bill package, which is currently making its way through the legislature, could establish some of those long-term solutions.
Last week, I spoke with Assemblymember Henry T. Perea, who is the author of two of the bills in the package.
“It took decades of bad policy and poor oversight for these communities to get where they are today, and it is going to take some time to fix those problems,” Perea told me.
One of Perea’s bills, AB 1669, would create a ‘Nitrate At-Risk Area Fund,’ which would be used to develop and implement solutions for low-income communities that are at risk of nitrate contamination. These communities would be identified by the state Department of Public Health and the state Water Resources Control Board.
The bill would prioritize funding for areas contaminated with nitrates, and reduce the bureaucratic hurdles that prevent smaller communities from taking advantage of existing funds, Perea said. It targets an ongoing challenge to implementing drinking water solutions, Perea said: there is “always more need than there is resources,” he said.
A recent University of California, Davis study found that about 254,000 people in the southern San Joaquín Valley and Salinas Valley are at risk of nitrate contamination of their drinking water.
Another bill, AB 2238, would promote consolidation of small water systems or infrastructure extension, when these actions can help improve access to safe and affordable drinking water in disadvantaged communities.
Specifically, it would improve the ability of Local Agency Formation Commissions (LAFCOs) to identify and study opportunities for consolidation and service extension. It would also require the state department of health to promote consolidation, prioritize funding for projects involving consolidation of small water systems, and prioritize funding for consolidation projects that promote safe and affordable drinking water.
Instead of having small water districts serving nearby communities, “we would like to see the larger water districts take in those service areas to create greater efficiency,” Perea said. This, he said, would save taxpayer money, and would create economies of scale, so one community does not get left behind.
Both of Perea’s bills are expected to reach the Appropriations Committee in mid-May.
Other bills in the Human Right to Water package include:
AB 685, by Assemblymember Mike Eng (D-Monterey Park,) which would establish the human right to water as a statewide policy priority;
AB 2334, by Assemblymember Paul Fong (D-Cupertino,) which would require the Department of Water Resources to conduct an analysis of water affordability every five years;
AB 1830, by Assemblymember V. Manuel Pérez (D-Coachella,) which would authorize the Public Utilities Commission to order restitution to mobile home park residents where it finds that the park owner charged unjust or unreasonable water rates.
On Monday (May 14) HBO will premiere the first two parts of its documentary series, ‘The Weight of the Nation.’
The films – presented by HBO and the Institute of Medicine, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, in partnership with the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Kaiser Permanente – feature case studies, interviews with health experts, and the stories of individuals and families struggling with obesity, according to the film’s website.
Here’s a trailer for the films:
Will you be tuning in? And do you think this film can make an impact in the San Joaquín Valley, where 70.9 pecent of Latino adults are overweight or obese?
If you don’t have HBO – or if you are interested in watching the films again with other Valley residents – consider attending a partial screening at the John W. Wells Youth Center in Madera on May 30 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The event, hosted by Central Valley Health Network’s HEAL Zone and Kaiser Permanente, will also include a panel discussion intended to inspire ideas about how to make Madera a healthier place to live.
Pictured above: There are already some great obesity-prevention efforts in the San Joaquín Valley, including the Community Food Bank’s food demonstrations, and a walking path at the Selma flea market.
During a Zócalo Public Square event on Monday evening, an outstanding panel will tackle a huge question: Why is the Central Valley sick?
By now, we all know the statistics:
Despite its agricultural bounty, the San Joaquín Valley is one of the poorest regions in the country. And despite growing the food that nourishes the nation, the region has high rates of food insecurity and obesity.
Our environment is also sick, and that doesn’t help people’s health. Many low-income communities have contaminated drinking water. We have some of the dirtiest air in the nation, and an epidemic of asthma. Rural communities are exposed to harmful pesticides.
We have a critical shortage of primary care doctors and specialists. But simply adding more doctors to the region – without addressing the other social, economic and environmental factors – could prove nothing but a Band-Aid.
So, what can be done to improve the health of Valley residents?
In the post, ‘This Place is Sick,’ now on Zócalo’s website, I suggested that low-income residents need better access to the healthy fruits and vegetables grown in this region:
The prescription to improve the health of the San Joaquín Valley must begin with the area’s greatest asset: agriculture. I have covered great initiatives intended to make locally grown produce more accessible—including school farm stands, flea markets that accept EBT for produce, conversions of neighborhood liquor stores into corner stores featuring fresh produce, and the development of school gardens, where families can grow the products they are culturally accustomed to.
These efforts require little government funding, yet could improve the health of San Joaquín Valley residents. There is also an opportunity for innovative collaboration between the agriculture industry and health organizations.
I’m very interested to hear how panelists Sarah Reyes, Central Valley Program Manager of The California Endowment, John Capitman, executive director of the Central Valley Health Policy Institute, and Edward Palacios, CEO of San Joaquín Valley Rehabilitation, answer the question.
And I’m interested to hear your ideas! Join the discussion on Monday (May 7) at 6:30 p.m. at Arte Américas, 1630 Van Ness Ave., in Fresno. Or add your suggestions in the comment section below.
During the month of April – in recognition of Earth Day - Vida en el Valle ran a four-part series called Latinos Protecting la Tierra.
The five people featured in this series are true environmental advocates. They are proof that California residents can make an impact on the environmental health of their communities.
Three of the five people were farmworkers, or children of farmworkers. Two of the five have college degrees. They have organized people to fight for health and environmental justice; demanded health-protective laws and actions; and created policies that protect health and the environment for the long-term.
Here is one last look at the people featured in the series.
“Our communities here have been forever told they can’t do anything… and they don’t have the power. That’s not true. When people come together, things happen.”
A community leader in Mecca, where a horrible smell from a nearby facility sickened kids and residents
“This is where I live, and this is where my kids live, and this is where I want my kids to grow up. I want to make sure that my kids and my community and I have the same opportunity to live in a place where we have the chance to be happy and healthy, just like the people on the west end of this Valley do.”
Representing Eastern Riverside and Imperial counties
“I just hope that when this is all said and done, and I look back at this, I can say that we did some great work, and we brought our work and our community closer to justice. I can die with that. I’d be fine with that. I’d be cool.”
A youth leader in the fight to shut down a facility in East Palo Alto, and now executive director of Youth United for Community Action
“We were the underdog community of color, fighting this multi-million dollar company that was pretty much nationwide. Here we were, highschoolers, trying to bring down this company, and finally after so much advocacy, so much press, so many meetings, so many technical documents — we won.”
Sofía Gática, of Córdoba, Argentina, was one of six people honored with the international Goldman Prize today. The award, which comes with a prize of $150,00, bills itself as the “world’s largest prize honoring grassroots environmentalism.”
Gática’s story will resonate with San Joaquín Valley residents who have fought for years for health-protective laws regarding pesticides.
About 13 years ago, Gática’s baby daughter died of kideny failure. She soon noticed that residents in her working-class neighborhood of Ituzaingo were also suffering from alarming rates of leukemia, lupus and other diseases, according to this San Francisco Chronicle article.
Gática, who had only a high school education and no organizing experience, formed the group Mothers of Ituzaingó. They went door-to-door in their neighborhood, which is surrounded by soy bean fields, and discovered that pesticides were having a disastrous impact on the health of their community.
They found that only two households had not suffered from illness, according to the Chronicle. That spurred them to begin protesting the use of weed killers with a “Stop Spraying” campaign.
Their efforts eventually led to a ban on aerial spraying of agrochemicals within 2,500 meters of homes. (In comparison, some Valley counties have pesticide buffer zones of 400 meters.)
The short movie below captures Gática’s inspiring story.
When I spoke on the phone with Gática on Monday, I asked her if she had advice for Valley residents who were also concerned about the health impacts of pesticides. Valley communities have also experienced pesticide drift, and inexplicable health problems.
“I recommend demanding the rights to health and the environment,” she said.
She also recommended demanding the right to information – about what types of pesticides are being used, how they are being applied, and close to schools and homes they are being used.
Tracey Brieger, co-director of Californians for Pesticide Reform, said Gática’s story and advice is an inspiration to Valley residents fighting for health-protective pesticide laws.
Gática’s story, “would be a reminder that communities across the world are facing the same problems with pesticides, and it is very important to learn from each other,” Brieger said.
“The regulations and the rules are stronger in Argentina than they are here in California. We need to learn what it actually looks like to be health-protective.”
The Assembly Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color held a regional hearing at Fresno City Hall last Friday.
This was no ordinary hearing.
The hearing was intended to investigate ways to improve the lives of young men of color in communities across the state. And in Fresno – where boys and men of color comprised 65.2 percent of the city’s total male population in 2010 – there is a lot of room for improvement.
But this extraordinary hearing proved that despite the social and educational challenges facing young men of color, there is a lot to be hopeful about.
Minutes into the hearing, Roosevelt High School students “flashmobbed” the Fresno City Council Chambers, and began singing and dancing to the Black Eyes Peas song, ‘One Tribe.’ Everyone in the packed audience – and especially the legislators on the dais – clapped to the beat of the song.
Throughout the hearing, young people shared their stories of struggle and triumph. At times, I found myself wiping tears from my eyes, instead of taking notes. (You can read more about these stories in this week’s edition of Vida.)
Toward the end of the hearing, Sammy Nuñez, of Fathers and Families of San Joaquín, complimented the youth on their performance.
“Earlier today we saw our young people do a phenomenal job – they rocked the place,” he said. “I didn’t know what was going on, but I loved every minute of it.”
Then he launched into a performance of his own, reciting the lyrics of ‘The Rose That Grew from Concrete,’ by Tupac Shakur:
You see, you wouldn’t ask why the rose that grew from the concrete had damaged petals. On the contrary, we would all celebrate its tenacity. We would all love its will to reach the sun. Well, we are the rose – this is the concrete – and these are my damaged petals.
Based on all of those performance, I’d say there is enough energy, commitment, and passion to bring #BMOC Justice to Fresno.
Boys and Men of Color, previously on Harvesting Health:
The story behind the story: How the first Assembly Select Committee hearing on Boys and Men of Color inspired a story
What would you do if horrible smells of human waste and gas began wafting into your neighborhood? How would you respond if those smells began sickening your own children, elementary school students, and community residents?
When Celia García, below, was faced with the nightmarish reality last year in her hometown of Mecca, in the Eastern Coachella Valley, she responded by becoming an environmental and community advocate.
As you can read in ‘An advocate blooms in the desert,’ the second story in Vida’s series, Latinos Protecting la Tierra, García and her boys went door-to-door in a neighborhood in sight of the facility, to inform people of the situation. She joined a group, Líderes por un Mecca Limpio, to remind residents that the smell could be a symptom of a more dangerous environmental problem. She stood up to government officials, and demanded answers.
Why?
In this awesome audio slide show, created by Alejandra Alarcón of Coachella Unincorporated, García explains that she did all of this to protect the health of her family, and her community. She is still inspired by a comment her nephew made last winter, after his school was evacuated due to the sickening odor.
García’s nephew, C.J., said he no longer felt safe at school and, “for me that was heartbreaking,” she says at the end of the slide show. “And that day it became so personal and since that day, I knew there was no way that I would ever feel that way again. And I know that this community is worth all the fight, and all the attention, and all the hard work that’s being put into it.”
Verónica Mendoza and her daughter, Joanna, pictured below, are also featured as part of Latinos Protecting la Tierra this week. Verónica and Joanna live in the Tulare County community of Cutler, where the drinking water is contaminated by the long-banned pesticide DBCP.
Joanna, 16, was featured in this Nick News program about communities throughout the world that don’t have access to safe drinking water.
This weekend, Jewish families across the country and globe will gather together to celebrate the start of Passover. If United Farm Worker leader César E. Chávez were still alive, he might observe the Jewish holiday, too.
In my research for an upcoming story, I learned that Chávez used to hold Passover seders – ceremonial holiday dinners – inside the Pan y Vino hall at the UFW headquarters, also known as La Paz, in the Tehachapi Mountains community of Keene.
He would invite rabbis from Los Angeles to lead the union members in prayers, and in the re-telling of the Passover story – the story of Exodus, in which the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt.
“He took a real interest and comfort from Passover,” said Marc Grossman, Chávez’s longtime speech writer and personal aide. The story of Exodus, “meant a lot to him.”
If you will be observing the Passover holiday this weekend, consider bringing some universal social justice themes into your celebration.
How?
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture hosted the second Food and Justice Passover Seder. In the Haggadah – the text read during the seder – the Jewish social justice organization Bend the ARC framed the holiday as an opportunity for people to renew their commitment to social justice values, including:
No one goes hungry in this land of plenty and everyone has access to healthy and affordable food;
Our food is grown in ways that are environmentally sustainable;
All food production workers, from farmers to processors, drivers, and grocery and restaurant workers have safe workplaces and fair wages.
Happy Passover!
Above: Three religious sculptures in the Peace Garden at La Paz.
Lupe Martínez has – quite literally – played a role in two of the state’s great social justice movements.
As an organizer and leader for the United Farm Workers, and then the environmental justice movement, Martínez can always be counted on to sing and strum songs, including ‘De Colores’ – the UFW’s unofficial anthem – as a way to motivate and unify people.
But there’s a story behind his guitar skills.
In a recent interview, in advance of Vida’s upcoming series on environmental justice leaders, Martínez said he developed his musical skills during a challenging period in his life.
In 1977, Martínez, then a farmworker, was fired after his employer discovered he had been attempting to organize his fellow workers around UFW causes.
“I got blacklisted,” he said, explaining that no other companies would hire him. Martínez started playing the guitar, “out of hunger, and paying my bills,” he said.
“The guitar came as a result of the need – and I needed bad,” he said.
He learned how to play the guitar, and then started performing in bars. Eventually, he started to make a living off it.
Just as the guitar gave him hope during a period of unemployment, his music has also brought people encouragement.
“Anytime there is a rally, you can always count on Lupe and his guitar to motivate people and give them courage,” said Kettleman City resident Maricela Mares-Alatorre.
Music, “just releases sometimes a lot of the pressure that’s on that moment,” said Martínez, who is now the assistant director of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment. “And it just unites people – period.”
The video clip below features Martínez singing at a Central California Environmental Justice Network meeting in Wasco.
Read more about Martínez’s roles in the farmworker and environmental justice movements in next week’s edition of Vida en el Valle.
I met Stephanie Huerta and Angel Alvarez in June 2010, when they graduated from the rigorous Doctors Academy at Caruthers High School.
She was ranked third in her graduating class; he was a three-sport varsity athlete; and their daugther, Emily, was three years old. The teen parents, who were engaged, intended to attend UC Santa Cruz and raise their daughter together.
At that point, I was inspired by how much the pair had overcome, and how determined they were to succeed – together – in order to provide for their daughter. Even after interviewing dozens of young women for an in-depth series on teen pregnancy last year, this couple’s still story stood out to me.
So earlier this year, I reconnected with Stephanie. My co-worker, photographer Daniel Cásarez, and I visited the family in February at UC Santa Cruz, where they are now full-time students. They intend to get married once they can afford Stephanie’s dream wedding, and will raise Emily – and maybe more children – together.
As we sat in their small kitchen, in their Student Family Housing apartment with a view of the Pacific Ocean, I realized that this is the teen pregnancy success story we don’t hear often enough.
So – what’s the secret? – I asked them. How have you two been so successful, in school and as parents, when so many other teen parents face significant challenges?
“We just love each other,” Angel said. “It’s as simple as that.”
“We’ve gone through so much,” Stephanie said. “One little thing just doesn’t make a difference.”
Read more about Stephanie, Angel and Emily in ‘Baby Steps in College,’ featured in this week’s edition of Vida en el Valle.
