California Or A Third World Country? Cruz Reynoso publishes op-ed in the Huffington Post
Huffington Post, September 1, 2016
We’re in the midst of a hot, dry summer. While you’re thinking
about how you’ll cool off, consider this: four times more
Californians than the entire population of Flint, Michigan do not
get clean, safe water from the tap in their homes. They live
where water must be trucked in for drinking and cooking. Where
they wait in line to shower in public trailers. And where they’ve
been living like this for a long time.
California’s drought didn’t cause these third-world country
problems, but it certainly exacerbated them.
The hardest-hit communities, most in rural areas that are not
served by large municipal water agencies, relied on groundwater
sources that are contaminated or dry. Their small water agencies
don’t have the funding to operate and maintain new infrastructure
projects that could treat the water or bring in drinking water
from other regions. And the customers – most living well below
the poverty line – simply cannot cover the high cost of this
expense.
