Thousands of the Central Valley’s rural communities can’t so much as fill a glass of tap water without fear of health problems. Most people in the Valley drink groundwater. Unfortunately, years of pesticide use, fertilizer applications and dairy waste ponds have poisoned the groundwater.

Rural Central Valley communities pay the highest drinking water rates in the state. Some families pay as much as two to six percent of their income for undrinkable water. Many residents drive 30 to 50 miles each week just to buy water bottled water, effectively paying twice for their basic need. When wells fail, most of these small communities must shoulder the costs all by themselves, paying for expensive treatment and well operations from a tax base of only a couple hundred of people.

California is one of only two states in the US which does not have a groundwater management program. Small, low-income communities have borne the brunt of agency inaction for years, paying with their health and quality of life for California's poor groundwater managment and protection.

The drinking water crisis in the Central Valley:

• Clean and safe drinking water is a basic human right which many Central Valley residents are deprived of.

• Over 90% of our communities in the Central Valley rely on groundwater for drinking water.

• The Valley's groundwater is the worst polluted in the State – particularly from fertilizers and pesticides, as well as dairy and food processing waste.

• The majority of the nitrate violations in the state are in the Southern San Joaquin Valley, and particularly Tulare County. Specifically, Tulare County has the highest number of drinking water wells closed due to nitrate contamination and DBCP in the state, and over 20 percent of all community systems in Tulare County cannot meet basic safe drinking water laws. 75% of all the private wells in Tulare County tested by the State have contamination over the legal limits, and 40% of all wells had nitrate over legal limits.

• Approximately 40,000 people in the Southern San Joaquin Valley alone, are affected each year by unsafe and illegal levels of contaminants in their drinking water.

• 73% of the nitrate drinking water violations in the state are in the southern San Joaquin valley, which is also home to the same percentage of the state’s dairy cows.

• Tulare County has the highest poverty rates and the lowest in health care coverage in the state, and yet these communities are the ones that have to bare the cost of water pollution.

• Industrial agriculture is given waivers for their irrigation discharges, which means they do not have to endure that water flowing off their crops meets Clean Water Act standards. This highly contaminated water then seeps into our groundwater.

• Of the 34 dairies in the southern San Joaquin Valley that have groundwater monitoring wells, 30 show nitrate levels in excess of 45 mg/L, the federal and state standard. Ten out of the 11 facilities that have sufficient data to analyze showed evidence of significant groundwater degradation.

Current battle: fighting the 'ag waiver'

Farms in the Central Valley receive a ‘waiver’ from the regulatory agencies which allows them to discharge water that is highly contaminated with pesticides and fertilizers. This water flows into the Central Valley’s waterways and leaches into the groundwater…….

The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has failed to protect our drinking water supplies by waiving all groundwater protection requirements for irrigated agriculture.

Irrigation water seeping off fields contains a toxic mix of fertilizers and pesticides. As a result, our groundwater is the worst polluted in the State. More than 40,000 people in Central Valley communities each year are exposed to unsafe and illegal levels of contaminants in their drinking water. Today over 20 percent of all community systems in Tulare County cannot meet basic safe drinking water laws.

Virtually all Central Valley waters are too polluted by pesticides & other contaminants for beneficial uses - state Regulators found pesticides in 96% of Central Valley locations and there are steep declines in native fish and their food supply. Over 635 miles of rivers and streams in the Central Valley, including the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and Delta, are so polluted by agricultural pesticides that they are unsafe for uses such as fishing, swimming, and/or drinking.

We pay while they pollute!

While irrigators are given a green light to pollute, small, rural communities have to pay for bottled water and the cost for drilling new wells or treatment technology. Because these sources of contaminants have remained unregulated, residents in the Central Valley have to pay some of the highest proportional water rates in the state for undrinkable water.

Public funds subsidize many farmers to pay around $30/acre foot for water, yet most cities pay $200/acre foot for drinking water.

Tell the State and Regional Water Board that they must act now to protect our communities’ drinking water supplies!

• Write to the Board by noon on September 4 th to:

Ryan Maughan, Division of Water Quality

State Water Resources Control Board

1001 I Street, 15th Floor Sacramento, CA 95814

Fax: (916) 341-5584

E-mail comments should be sent to rmaughan@waterboards.ca.gov .

Please also indicate in the subject line, “Comment Letter – September 13, 2007 Irrigated Lands Program Joint Workshop.” (Please fax us a copy of your letter at 559-733-8219.)

• Join us at a Public Workshop with the State and Regional Boards on September 13, 2007 at 12 noon at:

City of Clovis Council Chambers

1033 Fifth Street

Clovis, California 93612