disadvantaged communities Archives

Allensworth residents feel abandoned by company that makes water out of thin air

March 13, 2024

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water

Allensworth is one of the testing grounds for a hydropanel that creates drinking water out of thin air. But two years into the program, community members say the hydropanel company has left them high and dry while many of the hydropanels have broken down. Allensworth has struggled with arsenic-laced groundwater for decades. In 2021, Source…

Drinking Water • Drought

Farm town residents block water rate hike but are still stuck with a massive water debt

March 1, 2023

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water

Residents of the small town of El Porvenir in western Fresno County successfully blocked a water rate hike Tuesday at the Fresno County Board of Supervisors meeting. The western Fresno County community, where nearly half the residents live in poverty, is already carrying a water debt of $400,000. That debt has been incurred over the…

Drinking Water • Drought

Prolonged drought creates tsunami of dry wells in San Joaquin Valley

December 6, 2022

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water

A wave of dry wells has hit the San Joaquin Valley hard this year putting the valley on track to see the most dry wells since the state began tracking that information in 2013. And while wells have dried up throughout the state, the valley is the epicenter of dry wells. As of the end…

SGMA

Madera groundwater plans kicked back by state for not protecting domestic wells, ignoring subsidence

September 22, 2022

• by Jesse Vad and Lois Henry, SJV Water

The state kicked Madera County groundwater plans back for a redo on Thursday, noting, in particular, that they had set water levels so low it could endanger hundreds of domestic wells. The plans also all but ignored ongoing damage to roads, bridges and canals caused by sinking land, subsidence, opting mostly to “monitor” the situation….

Drinking Water

SJV water managers know the pain of slow state response to failing water systems

August 3, 2022

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water

Water managers in the San Joaquin Valley who regularly work with residents of poor, rural communities facing water insecurity are applauding last month’s sharply critical audit of the state Water Resources Control Board. The California State Auditor’s report found a serious lack of urgency on the part of the water board, which is tasked with…

Drinking Water • Drought

Even emergency water suppliers are close to tapped out as more valley towns go dry

July 19, 2022

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water

Groundwater levels are dropping and domestic wells throughout the San Joaquin Valley are going dry as California’s third year of drought grinds on. That includes entire towns, such as East Orosi and Tooleville in Tulare County, which both went dry last week. It’s bad. But it may get worse. Area water suppliers are “locking down”…

SGMA

Vulnerable domestic wells will be focus of $10 million farmland retirement grant in Madera County

July 14, 2022

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water

Three San Joaquin Valley water agencies are gearing up to spend $10 million each in grant funding from the state Department of Conservation to retire or repurpose farmland. Valley agencies that received grants so far include the Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District, Pixley Irrigation District Groundwater Sustainbility Agency (GSA) and Madera County. SJV Water will…

Drinking Water

State looks to consolidate small drinking water systems in Fresno

September 27, 2021

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water reporting intern

State drinking water officials have quietly targeted a dozen small, disadvantaged water systems in Fresno for possible state aid. But it could still take up to three years to get through the paperwork and start putting pipes in the ground. “It takes a long time, years, to go from concept to actual construction starting,” acknowledged…

Drinking Water • Drought

Drought outpaces plans to fix failing drinking water systems

August 18, 2021

• by Jesse Vad and Lois Henry

This story was produced with funding and support from Fresnoland, for the Fresno Bee. Republishing is encouraged 48 hours after initial posting. A lot has happened over the past five years, but not much has changed in the tiny farmworker town of Okieville. Wells went dry enmasse in Tulare County, including in Okieville, during the last…

NEWS

Allensworth residents feel abandoned by company that makes water out of thin air

Farm town residents block water rate hike but are still stuck with a massive water debt

Prolonged drought creates tsunami of dry wells in San Joaquin Valley

Madera groundwater plans kicked back by state for not protecting domestic wells, ignoring subsidence

SJV water managers know the pain of slow state response to failing water systems

Even emergency water suppliers are close to tapped out as more valley towns go dry

Vulnerable domestic wells will be focus of $10 million farmland retirement grant in Madera County

State looks to consolidate small drinking water systems in Fresno

Drought outpaces plans to fix failing drinking water systems

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