Thousands in the San Joaquin Valley Have Unsafe Drinking Water, But Clean Water Is Close

Thousands in the San Joaquin Valley Have Unsafe Drinking Water, But Clean Water Is Close

UC Davis Study Shows Solutions, Some Underway With Water Justice Clinic
March 2018 By Karen Nikos-Rose

Tens of thousands of people living in the San Joaquin Valley’s unincorporated, rural, low-income communities have unsafe drinking water pouring from their taps. That water is delivered from a patchwork of community water systems that often don’t meet state or federal standards for drinking water, or from private wells that are not tested.

However, a University of California, Davis, study that assessed water systems throughout the valley found that safe water is often close at hand. Most people without safe water, or about 99,000 residents, live near public systems with clean water. They could access that water if service extensions, piping and other infrastructure were implemented, the report found.

“There are solutions,” said Jonathan London, associate professor, director of the UC Davis Center for Regional Change and lead author of the report, “We are confident that these communities, local water systems, and the state can work together to fund and encourage infrastructure improvement to ensure that no one in the San Joaquin Valley need worry about what is coming out of their faucets,” London said.

The report, “The Struggle for Water Justice in the San Joaquin Valley: A Focus on Disadvantaged Unincorporated Communities,” looked at access to safe drinking water in low-income communities without city governments in the eight counties of the San Joaquin Valley.  READ FULL ARTICLE

For additional information about this report, click HERE.