If the need is obvious and the money is there, why make poor people suffer?

This is the question for Gov. Jerry Brown following Bee reporter Mark Grossi's three-part series on the drinking water crisis in rural San Joaquin Valley communities.

I ask because who better than Brown to fix a problem begging for leadership?

The governor has the power. And, in the past, he has shown interest in the issues that intersect in tiny Tulare County farmworker communities such as Tooleville and Seville: poverty, health, environmental protection and cutting government bureaucracy.

The question is, will Brown come to the rescue, or will mothers in these towns keep lugging 5-gallon jugs of water from the store so they can cook with something uncontaminated?

No doubt about it. Water is complicated. So is government.

But with a phone call to Diana Dooley, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, Brown could untangle the bureaucracy preventing small communities from tapping loan and grant programs for safe water.

Or the governor can decide that he faces more pressing issues -- as governors before him have done. The poor are easy to ignore.

There's no doubt about money being available to fix tainted water systems. The state and federal governments regularly dole out grants and loans from well-funded programs. The barriers for rural towns have been bureaucracy and political will.

Residents in these communities live in the shadows. Many are undocumented workers, so they can't vote. They work the fields for small paychecks and try to provide the start of something better for their sons, daughters and grandkids.

You would hope that in California -- which has the world's eighth-largest economy -- these families would get safe drinking water from a faucet instead of a store.

You would hope that parents wouldn't have to worry about children drinking tap water when there isn't money to buy the bottled stuff.

And you would hope that the governor's team in Sacramento would help leaders in these towns navigate the bureaucratic maze instead of allowing technicalities to block access to safe drinking water.

The obstacle course to tap state funds begins with filling out a "pre-application." That's right, you apply to apply. This year, towns were given two months and a day to get their requests in -- July 29 to Sept. 30. Do you think that bigger cities and service districts with professional staffs might have a leg up on Tooleville and Seville in receiving help?

Brown has stuck up for the poor and underserved throughout his political career. He was an ally of Cesar Chavez and, in his first stint as governor, signed the landmark bill giving farmworkers the right to organize. In his return to politics, Brown sought to turn around impoverished, crime-plagued Oakland as its mayor. The record shows he has a social conscience.

On Friday, Brown signed seven bills related to improving drinking water, including AB 983, authored by Assembly Member Henry T. Perea of Fresno, whose district includes areas with contaminated water.

Perea's bill lets poor communities apply for grants that provide for improvements without raising water rates. This is a good start.

Now Brown needs to give the order that brings results -- not promises and further delays.