Nitrate contamination of drinking water is a pervasive problem in California’s agricultural heartland and is bound to intensify in the coming years, according to a University of California, Davis study released Tuesday.
The study, ordered by the state Legislature, shows chemical fertilizers and livestock manure are the main source of nitrate contamination in groundwater for more than 1 million Californians in the Salinas Valley and parts of the Central Valley.
While nitrate problems have been known for decades, the study offers a comprehensive assessment of how many people are exposed and identifies solutions and costs.
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Nitrate contamination in groundwater from fertilizer and animal manure is severe and getting worse for hundreds of thousands of residents in California’s farming communities, according to a study released today by researchers at UC Davis.
Nearly 10 percent of the 2.6 million people living in the Tulare Lake Basin and Salinas Valley might be drinking nitrate-contaminated water, researchers found. If nothing is done to stem the problem, the report warns, those at risk for health and financial problems may number nearly 80 percent by 2050.
A growing sea of underground pollution from farm fertilizers and dairy waste threatens drinking water for a 250,000 people from Fresno to Bakersfield, a new University of California study shows.
The bad water would fill Millerton Lake 64 times, according to estimates in the UC Davis study released today, and the annual cost of cleaning it up for residents in small towns, such as Seville in Tulare County, would be $36 million.
Rural San Joaquin Valley residents are unlikely to be surprised by the study, which covered the Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern land within the vast Tulare Lake Basin and the Monterey County portion of the Salinas Valley. In small towns, drinking bottled water is a way of life to avoid unhealthy tap water.
Environmental justice advocates have used laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act as vehicles to compel policymakers to incorporate their concerns for low income and disadvantaged communities into agency decisions in a more concrete way. In a case involving the controversial subject of climate change, they have gained the support of California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who has raised the stakes in this battle by intervening in a recent lawsuit challenging a ‘‘sustainable communities strategy’’ adopted by the San Diego Association of Governments. The authors of this article contend that if her efforts are successful, it would mark a radical expansion in the role played by CEQA—moving from environmental protection to social justice. It could also set a precedent for similar actions nationwide, the authors say.
A potential public health concern has been percolating into aquifer drinking water supplies in the Tulare Basin and Salinas Valley for the past 50 to 60 years. Nitrate is accumulating in the groundwater, with 1 in 10 residents in these areas exposed to potential contamination of their drinking water supplies. This problem will worsen if nothing is done to correct it.
Some nitrate comes from septic tanks and wastewater treatment plants, but our UC Davis research team recently concluded that the overwhelming source of nitrate contamination—more than 90 percent —is from agricultural fertilizers. The researchers studied nitrate in the drinking water of these two agricultural regions —an area that includes Fresno, Bakersfield and Salinas. Throughout the region, nearly all of the 2.6 million residents rely on groundwater for drinking water.
A study released last week on health in the San Joaquin Valley finds large disparities in life expectancies — as much as 20 years — often characterized by where residents live.
The study was prepared by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, its Health Policy Institute and the San Joaquin Valley Place Matters team.
The study found that for a variety of reasons, including the quality of schools, the level of violence, the availability of exercise options and the exposure to environmental degradation, people live longer in some areas than others.
Where you live can be an indicator of how long you’ll live, according to a new study on San Joaquin Valley health.
Published by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, the report found that in counties spanning from Tulare to Stanislaus, life expectancy varied markedly by ZIP code. In the most extreme cases, there was as much as a 21-year difference between neighborhoods.
A federal judge dismissed a challenge to ozone-pollution reporting in California’s Central Valley because the Environmental Protection Agency has already cracked down, albeit belatedly.
Medical Advocates for Healthy Air and Sierra Club sued the EPA in July 2011 for missing the deadline to determine whether the San Joaquin Valley met the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ozone. The valley lies within the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District, which intervened for the EPA in the case.
As the case for an injunction was pending in December 2011, the EPA belatedly made the sought-after determination and concluded that the San Joaquin Valley was in violation of the Clean Air Act for not meeting national ozone standards.
This determination came more than six months after a deadline set by the D.C. Circuit to address a more relaxed ozone standard that the EPA adopted in 2004.
Most of us can’t imagine turning on the tap to find no water coming out. But that’s the situation in a small development near Lamont which is serviced by the Athal Mutual Water Co. The lone well serving the 65 families, mostly poor, ran dry last week, leaving residents to shower at truck stops, bathe their children with baby wipes and fetch water in buckets from county water tanks. But the situation is not that uncommon.
Teresa De Anda recalls the afternoon when she tried to make a formal complaint about the dangerous mixture of poor air quality and pesticides, and its impact on her children’s health.
The polluted San Joaquín Valley air was particularly hard to breathe that day, and a grower was spraying pesticides on the fields near her Earlimart home. That combination, she said, caused her children to return from school, sluggish and sick.
“All the kids around were dragging — it was kind of squashing them with the weight of the air, and the pollutants in the air,” De Anda said.
She said she first tried to report the problem to the San Joaquín Valley Air Pollution Control District. But in a case of bureaucratic hot potato, she was referred to the Department of Pesticide Regulation, then the state Air Resources Board, and then the Kern County Agricultural Commissioner.