The Fresno Bee's three-part series on the San Joaquin Valley drinking water crisis has revealed an embarrassing secret about our region -- our poorest residents might as well be drinking water in a third-world country.

In many rural Valley communities, the tap water is tainted by rotting vegetation, fertilizers, manure and outdated plumbing, according to the investigation by reporter Mark Grossi. It's so bad that the United Nations visited the area and declared that residents in our region have a basic human right to clean drinking water. What does it say when the U.N. must remind us that cleaning drinking water isn't a frill?

This crisis exists in the Golden State in the 21st century. It is outrageous that we treat the poorest among us this way.

It surely doesn't matter to the governor and state lawmakers who have found excuse after excuse for not cleaning up water systems in communities such as Seville and Tooleville in Tulare County. These are very poor communities made up of farmworker families, who have no clout in Sacramento or Washington, D.C.

You can bet if these conditions existed in Los Angeles or San Francisco, they'd be fixed immediately. These small-town water systems could be upgraded entirely with $150 million -- the same amount of money that San Francisco committed last year for solar panels and water efficiency.

The Valley communities have been invited to apply for grants to upgrade their water systems, but turned down over technicalities. It's a game to the politicians and bureaucrats and life and death to the families, especially the children, who must drink the tainted water.

State officials know of the need, yet they have done little, even when the state was in a strong financial position. Now they use the poor economy as an excuse not to clean up the drinking water in the poorest Valley communities.

Former Assemblyman Juan Arambula said these are "forgotten communities," conveniently ignored by lawmakers as lobbyists for well-connected interests move to the head of the line. "They need help now," Arambula told Grossi.

It's time for lawmakers to agree that California residents shouldn't be drinking tainted water -- and then do something about it.