The world views California as a leader in environmentalism and good living, but reports on the safety and availability of clean drinking water in the Golden State contradict that view.
State health and water regulators recently announced that nearly a quarter of a million California residents lack safe drinking water in their homes.
It is unacceptable that any residents of the sixth largest economy in the world can’t drink the water from their kitchen faucets, and even more so for low-income and less fortunate Californians who don’t have a choice in where or how they get their drinking water.
For over a decade, Sacramento leaders have debated this problem — and millions of tax dollars have been spent on the issue — yet water safety and access challenges persist. Our communities must coordinate their power and push decisionmakers to find reasonable, balanced solutions to California’s water safety and access challenges.
The facts are disturbing. Despite $352 million spent to address California’s water crisis, there are still 385 failing water systems across the state that serve 913,000 people. In addition, 613 at-risk systems serve 1.5 million people despite further spending of $136 million. Worst of all, there are 727 high-risk small systems and 143,663 high-risk domestic wells serving people in small communities scattered across California’s Central Valley.
The mishandling of California’s water infrastructure represents a moral and economic injustice for some and an existential crisis for others. For example, a recent study showed that groundwater that Central California farm communities depend on is polluted by millions of tons of fertilizer that is used to grow food.
Nonetheless, the area’s monthly water bills average around $67 per month. The government is demanding families pay increasingly high costs for water that isn’t even safe for them to drink.
Fortunately, there are brave individuals and organizations outside the government that are stepping up and fighting to fix this crisis for communities in need.
Take Walter Contreras (no relation), founder of the Sperantia Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works tirelessly day in and day out to serve the underserved and the unhoused in California. Walter lives and works in Los Angeles.
There, recent water quality concerns in the Watts neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles put local officials and community members on edge.
He has seen firsthand the problems that are caused by continued lack of safe drinking water, which he has termed “morally outrageous” given that it has been 12 years since California was the first state to recognize drinkable water as a basic right.
Continued failures to address drinking water safety issues have forced many rural California families with poor water access to drive to neighboring towns to buy bottled water to bathe their babies or make a simple cup of coffee before they report to work in the region’s sprawling fields or orchards.
Thankfully, a host of Californians — including nonprofit leaders, community members, business leaders, and faith leaders — have joined forces to address the water crisis affecting millions of Californians.
Walter and his fellow community organizers are using their time and resources to support organizations like Californians for Smarter Sustainability — a coalition of California residents, businesses, and community leaders advocating for balanced regulations and water infrastructure investments — so they can mobilize, raise money, and recruit more people to improve access to safe water across the state.
In 2024, drinkable water should not be a goal; it is a right.
California should have all it needs — money, political will, and community activists like Walter Contreras — to ensure that all residents enjoy the right to clean, safe, and affordable water.
Now, it is time for Californians from across the state to stop talking about fixing California’s failing water infrastructure and actually fix it. We must do everything we can to provide all Golden State residents with the basic right that is ours — drinkable water.
Is that too much to ask for?
Raoul Lowery Contreras is a Marine Corps veteran, political consultant, prolific author and host of the Contreras Report on YouTube and Facebook.
