Editor’s note: Jena Price, CLCV Legislative Affairs Manager, is spending a few weeks on the road meeting with lawmakers in Central and Southern California in their districts to learn more about the environmental issues that are most important to them and their constituents. Today Jena blogs from Fresno and Avenal.
After meeting with Assemblymember Perea, I headed to Engelmann Winery on his recommendation. Owned by Bret and Eliana, who inherited their land from Bret’s raisin farming father, it is now a 200-acre winery. On the east side of Fresno, they said they faced relatively few environmental challenges. Of course, that could change: global warming is already having an impact on the wine industry in California, including where different varietals of grapes will thrive. Learn more from KQED’s Quest program, “The Heat is on for California Wines.”
They suggested I head west if I wanted to talk to people affected by challenges such as contaminated water. So yesterday I drove west from Fresno down the 41 to Avenal – a town of 9,000 that sits less than 5 miles away from the 15th largest oil field in the state (Chevron Kettleman Oil Field), the Waste Management hazardous waste site and a PG&E gas compressor station. All three have had significant environmental issues.
There are reports that hexavalent chromium (also known as chromium-6, made famous by Erin Brockovich and the town of Hinkley, CA) has seeped into the water supply. It was often used to reduce rate of rust in the water tanks used to cool the natural gas that was traveling from Texas to California for PG&E. California recently proposed the nation’s first drinking water limits on chromium-6, which is likely to be carcinogenic to humans.
The Kettleman City waste site has been hammered with multiple violations. In 2006, 1,500 plaintiffs split a $295 million settlement with PG&E over chrom-6 groundwater contamination. Most of the plantiffs were PG&E employees. Hanford, Avenal and Armona are separated by about 30 miles each. All pay to a different water utility. All have different health and environmental threats.
I met Kelly, a bar owner in Hanford who poured me a glass of water from the tap. It looked fine, but smelled strongly of sulfur. The water in Armona does come out brown and on occasion residents will find warnings of strychnine contamination on their front doors.
While talking to Armona resident Taz (and his pet boxer Briley) I found that his average water bill was $99 a month; a modest amount compared to the rate I have heard others pay, sometimes upwards of $200 a month. That was after he and his wife decided to stop watering their lawn. Their water came from a private well that is old and outdated and because it is private, will not receive any public state funding for infrastructure updates. The only way to find the funding is to increase the rates on the ratepayers; charging some of California’s poorest residents. They are also not eligible for any federal low income grants to fix the issue as their rate of arsenic in their water exceeds EPA standards.
Here’s an article addressing this issue: http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/news/local/armona-residents-upset-over-high-water-bills/article_8f4bb9ce-0400-11e2-99bf-0019bb2963f4.html.
Next stop: Hanford, California.
