Susana De Anda of the Community Water Center
Summaries from the Localizing California Waters Conference
Last week I attended the Localizing California Waters conference in Groveland, California. I was surrounded by water guardians and land stewards. I’ll be posting some of the information I learned, here on my substack.
Susana De Anda, from the Community Water Center, emphasized that clean water is a human right, not a privilege. With a focus on California's Central Valley, she discussed the challenges of ensuring safe and affordable drinking water, particularly for low-income communities facing water contamination. Susana emphasized the importance of addressing issues like racism and social governance in the water crisis, recounting experiences of discrimination in her community.
“Over 1 million people in California do not have safe drinking water on a daily basis. The vast majority of these public water systems that are not providing safe drinking water are found in the Central Valley and on the Central Coast in California. In every county we have systems that are not providing public drinking water. To make matters worse if you're low income and you look like me [BIPOC] you up your chances of having polluted water — what that means is that people of color are having to pay some of the highest water rates for toxic water.”
She showed two samples of bottled water on the screen. One was clear and one was visibly dirtly. “We like to say that looks can be very deceiving because you would think that if you're looking at the clean looking water bottle, that would be safer to drink. Well it's not. Tt is the dirty water bottle next to it that's safer to drink because that one has manganese and sulfur, which is a secondary contaminant but the clear looking water bottle has nitrates. We all know that if you boil nitrates — what happens?? — it increases the concentration and is therefore even more toxic.” Not only that, but the toxic water notifications aren’t always in a language that the residents can understand.
Lack of language also makes it difficult to organize residents. Engaging with people in a language they understand is important so that we can all show up to the table authentically and share information. She says that “ change happens at the pace of trust.” If you don’t have trust for each other, it makes it very difficult to work together towards shared goals. In order to resolve this, we need to be building strong relationships on the ground, with people that are affected by the reality, to ensure that we actually solve it by working alongside them.
Stressing the need for equitable community engagement and the significance of proximity to the issues being addressed, she emphasized the need for residents, particularly those affected by water issues, to be actively involved in decision-making processes. By trusting impacted residents as experts and engaging authentically with communities, Susana believes change can happen faster. Her advocacy for meaningful representation on water boards aligns with this approach, aiming to better reflect the diverse needs of the community in water governance.
Susana highlighted legislative victories, such as SB 200 and SB 3, providing funding and protection against water shut-offs. SB 200 allocates $130 million annually for a decade to address water issues, focusing on long-term solutions. SB 3 aims to ban water shut-offs for residents unable to pay their bills, requiring water systems with 200 connections to provide affordable payment programs. These legislative successes mark crucial steps towards ensuring access to safe and affordable drinking water for vulnerable communities.
She strongly advocates for holistic solutions to address the interconnected challenges related to water, including issues of racism and social governance. She stresse the need for flexibility in funding to organize effectively and creatively solve problems. Foundations play a crucial role in providing this flexible funding. Susana's emphasis on foundations highlights the importance of supporting organizations like hers that work directly with impacted communities. Despite bureaucratic delays, she remains optimistic that change occurs more rapidly when residents actively participate in the decision-making processes.