Author: Kerry Klein, Valley Public Radio 

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.

The Civil Rights Movement was undoubtedly one of the most important movements of the 20th century. It was, however, more than a reclamation of ethnic identity and social power for minority groups, but also the catalyst of environmental rights awareness. Thus was born a movement to fight environmental racism that today has developed into a concept widely known as environmental justice.

Mr. Lee is widely recognized as a true pioneer in the arena of environmental justice.  He was the principal author of the landmark report, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States.

The Center for Regional Change is working with the UC Davis Superfund Program and community partners to learn about community concerns about agricultural use of biosolids in Kern County, CA and apply SRP-technologies and expertise to address these community driven questions.

Collaborating on a pilot project, the UC Davis Superfund Research Program (SRP) and the UC Davis Center for Regional Change (CRC) aim to:

Environmental Justice and Regional Change in the Central Valley is an interdisciplinary study of the social equity impacts of regionalism in environmental governance.

We systematically examine how racial minority, low-income, and immigrant communities fare in the rescaling of decision-making about regional land use, transportation, housing, and water management.