NewsTaco

By Jose Gonzalez, NewsTaco

This past week two stories stood out identifying two communities of color different in many ways but connected by a common challenge: contaminated water.

One story, from the New York Times, pointed out the issues with contaminated water faced in small predominately Latino communities in the Central Valley, California. “Don’t drink the water” is no joke here, but rather a sad reality and norm for low-income communities of color. It should be fair to ask HOW this happen as well as WHY. As the NY Times story points out:

“It is the grim result of more than half a century in which chemical fertilizers, animal wastes, pesticides and other substances have infiltrated aquifers, seeping into the groundwater and eventually into the tap.”

The irony is that many of these communities are farm-working communities that work the very fields and industries that poison their drinking water —and in that process these communities bear the cost of food production in more than one way. First, we rely on communities like these to serve as a labor force for the food we consume, the dairies and crops of California’s bountiful bread basket. But the political and economic forces that govern these areas keep many of these communities in poverty with low wages or uneven enforcement of the few regulations in place to protect them. Second, these communities struggle with limited access to the basic needs some of us take for granted, such as drinking water.

These communities are asked to pay twice for water. They pay first for the tap and second in the purchase of bottled drinking water. Furthermore this pushes habits we consider detrimental to sustainable living: In the larger conservation community we stress the detrimental environmental effects of bottled water and yet that is the safest and healthiest option for these communities absent state and regulatory action.

The other story exposed the loopholes benefiting oil and gas companies to dump contaminated water on the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming.  NPR broke the story, specifically pointing out  how what goes on there is illegal in most of the country— with the implication that a reservation is not seen as like most of the country.  The shocking part is that this is permitted, directly and indirectly, by the Environmental Protection Agency, the very agency that is supposed to regulate this type of practice to protect people and the environment. As this article from KERA News points out, quoting a Duke University environmental scientist:

“I was shocked when I heard this. I was very surprised this was allowed. It’s just something that we should know better by now. We should know that dumping our waste onto the surface of the ground is a bad solution…Are we doing something on tribal lands we wouldn’t allow somewhere else? I think that’s something we have to be asking ourselves.”

Those are good questions, but questions and issues that not all communities face— Yet common enough in communities of color.

Though its name might be a little misleading, the Colorado River flows through seven states, running over 1,400 miles through the U.S. Southwest before emptying out into the Gulf of California. According to Nuestro Rio, the river provides drinking water for millions of people, irrigates 15% of the nation’s crops, and feeds 13% of the nation’s livestock.

Considered to be a lifeline for many in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming, the river has been affected in recent years by continuous drought, development and climate change. Half of the water now in reservoirs has been used up, threatening to disrupt the lives and livelihoods of those who depend on the river’s supply.

Nuestro Rio, a network of Latinos focused on preserving the Colorado River, began a campaign to raise awareness about its supply and demand problem, and is urging people in the Southwest to contact elected officials and take action to help preserve the river. In late November, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation announced that it would be taking suggestions from the general public regarding how to address the problem of the shortage of water in the Colorado River.

According to a recent press release from Nuestro Rio, the Bureau of Reclamation aims to:

[C]ollect and analyze proposals for tactics to deal with the supply and demand challenge on the river. Any individual or organization can submit a proposal by January 13th. These proposals will inform the broader strategy to deal with this challenge that will ultimately recommended by the study, scheduled to conclude in July of 2012.

Acting in the interests of those that depend on the water supply, Nuestro Rio will be urging decision makers to to take steps to support such priorities as:

• More Jobs. Policy changes should protect and promote jobs in the recreation and tourism industry, which is a pillar of the Western economy.
• Common Sense. There is no money or political will available for multi-billion dollar pipe dreams. New policy must focus on common sense solutions.
• A Better Way of Life. Fishing, boating, hiking and other recreational opportunities keep people coming West, and the solutions produced by the Basin Study need to support this economic and cultural advantage.