Many Valley towns like mine, Lanare, drank contaminated water. It’s a statewide crisis.

This is serious. Clean drinking water should not be a luxury; it is a basic need.

The reason that I got involved in the movement for clean drinking water was that our water tested high for arsenic, a known carcinogen, and we couldn’t afford to treat it. While my early focus was securing affordable and safe water for Lanare, it was not long before I realized that my community was not alone, that this was a statewide crisis.

I realized that hundreds of communities were like mine, and that low-income families had to drink contaminated water or cut into limited household budgets to pay for bottled water. I learned that hundreds of communities were like mine, and were unable to afford the costs of treating their water so that it could be safe to drink.

I learned that hundreds of communities were like mine, and were fighting from the neighborhood to the state-wide level for access to safe and affordable drinking water.

For nearly 10 years now I have worked with my neighbors in Lanare, and fellow members of my statewide community of community-based drinking water advocates. For nearly 10 years we have been talking about our individual and collective struggle to secure safe drinking water for more than 1 million people in California who can’t count on safe drinking water running from their taps.

These efforts led to a diverse group of advocates and government leaders to come together to propose a simple solution for my community and the hundreds like mine. Its name, as simple as its substance: The Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund.

For those that have fought alongside my friends and neighbors by pledging support for the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, thank you. For those who have avoided taking a position on this important legislation by proposing solutions that will not work, you are not fooling us.

My advice to elected officials: invest your time, your influence, and your passion on achieving this humble goal – safe and affordable drinking water for all Californians. For those representing communities like mine: your constituents are lining up to partner with you to eliminate unsafe water from our homes and schools.

For those representing areas that don’t have as many serious drinking water problems as communities like mine have: don’t let your distance cause indifference. We are your neighbors, we farm your vegetables, we work in your hospitals, we clean your resorts, we teach your children.

We are all Californians and we are all residents of this state that prides itself caring for the environment and caring for its people. What could be easier that making sure everyone has safe water? What could be more important?

Some say “this does not concern me” but the day a community’s water runs out or is impacted, we are all affected. Without water there is no life. We need a permanent source of funding that will provide long term solutions. We are not looking for Band-aid solutions. Do what California does best, LEAD.

This story was originally published April 27, 2018 at 11:51 AM with the headline "Many Valley towns like mine, Lanare, drank contaminated water. It’s a statewide crisis.."