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Wells Are Running Dry in Rural Communities of Color. Is a Fix in Sight? [1]
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Date: 2023-07-12 22:32:53.632000+00:00
This article was produced in collaboration with Nexus Media News, part of a series on climate change and the 2023 Farm Bill.
For years, Michael Prado has provided bottled water to his neighbors in Sultana, a town of about 785 people in California’s Central Valley. That’s because most wells in town have been contaminated by runoff from agriculture, said Prado, who is president of the Sultana Community Services District. Only one meets state standards for safe drinking water — he’s glad they have it, but it’s not enough.
“We’ve been crossing our fingers and toes that this drought [wouldn’t] dry our well up. Due to the fact that we live in an agricultural area and this is a little community, we would be devastated,” he said. Prado worries that if the town’s remaining up-to-standard well gives out, even more residents would have to boil water before using it or rely on bottled water. “We are in dire need of a new well,” he said.
Millions of people in the U.S. lack access to safe drinking water. Rural communities of color like Sultana, which is majority Hispanic, are disproportionately affected by this crisis. There, some families spend up to 10% of their monthly income on water. And yet the federal government underfunds communities of color when it comes to water infrastructure, according to a recent report from the Community Water Center, a California advocacy group.
“These racialized disparities in access to safe drinking water and effective wastewater services are occurring because of decades of disinvestment,” said Jenny Rempel, co-author of the report and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. In California alone, 300 towns do not supply safe drinking water to residents, the report found.
Advocates say the Farm Bill, a massive piece of legislation that is voted on every five years and determines how the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) disburses billions in federal funding, is a chance to finally invest in these communities’ water systems.
“The Farm Bill has funding that can really help address a lot of these gaps,” said Susana de Anda, executive director of the Community Water Center. She said the legislation should increase investments, particularly grants, in rural Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities; fund an annual audit of the USDA to determine which communities actually receive water infrastructure funding; and push the agency to deepen relationships with community-based organizations to ensure long-neglected populations have a voice in the planning process.
“It’s clear that [low-income people of color] have been left out of water planning, and more importantly, they’ve been left out of intentional funding designed for them to really meet their needs and solve the issue,” de Anda added.
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[1] Url:
https://ambrook.com/research/legislation/wells-water-scarcity-pollution-communities-of-color-Farm-Bill
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