EAST OROSI -- Joanna Mendoza, 16, has always guzzled bottled water at home, since the tap water in her Tulare County community of Cutler is contaminated with the long-banned pesticide DBCP.
She also brings bottled water to Orosi High School, where the water is contaminated with nitrates.
"I have grown up not being able to drink my tap water, which I think is something that is not really right," Mendoza told Jared Blumenfeld, regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and other local, state and federal government officials last Wednesday afternoon.
"Why should I have to pay double for water?"
As part of a two-day tour of the San Joaquín Valley, Blumenfeld last Wednesday afternoon visited the small, east Tulare County communities of East Orosi and Seville to hear from Mendoza and other community residents who for years have fought for clean drinking water.
His visit coincided with the launch last week of the EPA's San Joaquín Valley Strategic Plan, which pledges to support efforts to address drinking water issues, improve public health, and uphold environmental justice in the region.
The plan -- which is intended to guide the agency's work in the Valley -- states the EPA will work with federal agencies to leverage state Department of Public Health planning and design funding for 11 public water systems, and construction funding for four public water systems that need infrastructure improvements and treatment to meet drinking water standards, among other goals.
For Blumenfeld, meeting with community residents underscored the EPA's decision to focus its attention and resources on the Valley, where low-income Latinos disproportionately bear the burden of contaminated drinking water.
The visit, he said, serves to "validate our internal decision to focus on the San Joaquín Valley. Everything you do when you come here re-emphasizes the importance of making this a priority."
"You can read statistics," he said. "But when you meet someone with a name and a face and a child and a house -- it is definitely why we all do this job. Our job is to protect human health and the environment."
For area residents, Blumenfeld's visit was an opportunity to put a compelling human face on a complicated issue.
"I really wanted him to visually see what really exists," said Rebecca Quintana, a Seville resident who has worked with the Visalia-based Community Water Center to improve her community's unhealthy drinking water.
"There is a difference between hearing and seeing. I actually wanted him to see with his own eyes what communities and their infrastructure look like."
The visit also provided environmental advocates with the chance to push for policy changes.
During a short community forum at Stone Corral Elementary School -- where students are unable to drink water from the fountains -- Verónica Garibay, of California Rural Legal Assistance, said low-income, unincorporated Valley communities are unable to compete for water infrastructure grants that carry a "shovel-ready" requirement.
"There is an inherent inequity in that requirement for disadvantaged communities," Garibay told Blumenfeld.
In reference to the strategic plan's goals of providing funding for the planning and construction of Valley water systems, she said money should be doled out, "in a way that is equitable and that it really reaches areas in most need."
Irma Medellín, a community organizer from Lindsay, said she hopes the visit and new plan finally spur the EPA to direct its focus and resources on the Valley's health and environmental challenges.
"For many years, we have been asking the EPA to take action," Medellín said in Spanish. "Now they are saying there is money... but our communities never benefit from this."
To Blumenfeld, she said: "Don't forget many people live here, and one day we want to have water like a human right and not a privilege."
"It is at the top of our minds, and we won't forget it," he responded.
María Herrera, community outreach coordinator for the Community Water Center, said Blumenfeld's visit, and interactions with residents, mark an important first step in engaging with the EPA to find solutions for Valley communities without potable drinking water.
"Having residents share such personal stories and taking the time to be part of these discussions only highlights how important this is and how they are waiting and working to get some changes," Herrera said.
"I can see nothing but good coming out of this," she said.
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