The water crisis is a California environment issue, not just a Coachella Valley Issue says some visiting elected officials
On the second day of a water tour hosted by the Water Education For Latino Leaders or WELL, leaders see the valley's water crisis for the first time, are stunned, and learn what they say is a lack of water infrastructure.
They toured the Coachella Canal, Salton Sea, and Polanco Park to see the lack of clean water and infrastructure in the eastern Coachella Valley. "The smell is noticeable, and it's not terrible, but it's like, hey, I wonder what that is," says Celeste Rodriguez, the mayor of San Fernando.
When mercury and humidity are high, levels of hydrogen sulfide spike in the Salton Sea; it smells like rotten eggs. "I have learned a lot about the need to balance the community and ecological and funding and infrastructure needs to ensure that everyone has safe water," says Rodriguez.
This water crisis, they say, is a California environment issue, not just a Coachella Valley Issue. "Many of us are contending with unsafe things in our water; for example, I'm from the city of San Fernando, which is in the Los Angeles region, and we have nitrates in our water.," says Rodriguez. "It's been a big thing for us to focus on how we get the resources to ensure we have the right infrastructure and cleaning systems so that our community has safe drinking water?"
Celeste Rodriguez has aspirations of running for assembly. She wants to know the state's issues. "We're community members ourselves," says Rodriguez. "We're not as informed about all of the technical, scientific, and political details and water history of the state, but we're taking the time to learn because the fact is that it all ties together with what the future of water looks like for all of us."
Two families shared their stories of day-to-day life without safe drinking water. One has been relocated, but others in the community are stuck in these conditions.
Some water agency representatives outside the valley couldn't believe what they saw and heard. "It's an invisible society we don't know about," says West Valley Water District Board director Kelvin Moore. "So make that society visible by showing what we saw. This is California as a Californian, and it is embarrassing. As an American, it's embarrassing. So those types of things need to be exposed."
A Polanco Park in Thermal resident allowed the group to tour her home, where she only has one filtration system. It is under the sink in her kitchen. She says it makes it impossible to bath and shower with clean water. "Your hair falls out a lot; when you shower, you get rashes on your skin; when you're cleaning your patio, and you're removing dirt or cleaning items that have had contact with the water, your hands get colored and they burn," says the Polanco Park resident. She also has a water dispenser that has been very costly.
