There is a watercontamination problem in California, and it has seriously affected people’shealth. As a 2017 study by Los Angeles Times indicates, the bad water resourceis usually found in farmer communities and small communities. “The state’s badwater is concentrated in the mostly Latino farmworker communities of the SanJoaquin Valley, but nearly all of California’s 58 counties include small, ruralcommunities with tainted water.” (Leslie) Thus, people who live in those smallcommunities are forced to put more money on purchasing bottled water ratherthan drinking water directly from faucets.Drinkingcontaminated water can cause serious health problems.
People may not notice theeffects immediately after they have drunk those tainted water. However, in longterm, those contamination sources can lead to cancer or other grave diseases. “Farmers bear responsibilityfor nitrate, the second-biggest contamination source, which enters the water supplyfrom agricultural runoff and manure. Nitrate can cause “blue babysyndrome,” a potentially fatal disorder in infants, and other seriousailments in pregnant women and children.” (Leslie) He points out that Nitrateis one of the contamination that can potentially harm infants, pregnant andchildren’s health.It is necessary to takeaction to deal with this water issue. In short term, people can invest smallamount of money on water resource. For example, people can install waterfiltration system at their home, which provides clean drinking water byremoving most of the contaminants.
However, this method can only solve theproblem in a short period. In long term, building water treatment facilities isone of the efficient ways. Unfortunately, it bears huge cost, and most of thesmall communities don’t have the funds to have this water treatment facility.Moreover, larger cities are not willing to invest money to those smallcommunities. “In Tulare County, for example, the 1971 general plan went so faras to name 15 unincorporated low-income and minority communities whose drinkingwater and wastewater infrastructure was deemed unworthy of investment becausethe communities had “little or no authentic future.
“” (Leslie) Sincelarger city sees that it is not worth to invest money in less productivecommunities, small communities are short of funds to fix their contaminatedwater.Although there is limitedresources to address the water issue, it is needed to find ways to solve theproblems. Therefore, everyone can access to clean water and prevent any illnessthat is caused by contaminated water.
